Casey Jones
by Supaflywriterguy
Summary: It seems small time vigilante Casey Jones bit off more than he could chew when he crossed paths with the Purple Dragon gang. Now he's about to get wrapped up in the craziest thing he's ever experienced in his life. Good thing he's got his trusty hockey stick. (TMNTU Phase 1: Origin, Book 1)
1. I Run Away From Dragons

I've been in a lot of sticky situations since I started this whole vigilante gig. One time, I was trying to get a cat out of a tree for some old lady, and the kitty was not having it. Since then, I've always worn my trusty hockey mask. Another time I caught a purse thief by tripping him with my golf club, but it turns out she was running away from someone who had actually tried to steal _her_ purse. I had some real trouble explaining that one to the cops. But never have I ever been this deep in the shit.

Pardon my French.

I tried to turn too quickly, my sneakers struggling to find purchase on the worn concrete. My shoulder slammed hard into a brick wall, but through my football pads I barely felt the impact. I took off down the alley, splashing through a puddle and knocking down a few trash cans behind me. Something told me they wouldn't slow down the people on my tail, but at the moment I was desperate for time. There was no chance I was getting away on foot; I needed wheels. Wheels and some better weapons. A 5 iron and a hockey stick are great for dealing with regular old street thugs and purse snatchers, but the dudes I was dealing with were not what I would call normal.

As if to punctuate my thought, a liquor bottle flew past my head, shattering on the pavement ahead in a flash of liquid flame. The molotov forced me to take a sharp right, to avoid catching myself on fire, and I found myself face to face with another brick wall. I practically skidded to a stop, chest heaving. I heard the horde of foot steps file in behind me, accompanied by a few murmered jeers and some chuckling. I heard a metal pipe fall heavily into someones palm. I swallowed behind my mask, sweat beading down my forehead and onto my lips until I could taste the salt on them. I spun on my heel to face my attackers.

There were about a dozen of them, all accounted for, dressed up in various shades of purple. One guy stood taller than I was, the others close to or below my own height. There was an array of shabby, improvised weapons in their hands. A length of barbed wire wrapped around a baseball bat, a long chain, a couple of knives. The long, raven hair that hung to my shoulders stuck to the sweat on my neck, my eyes darting from thug to thug. I felt like an alley cat, cornered by a particularly mean and illegal squadron of Animal Control. A lady with a spikey green mohawk sneered, twirling a cricket bat around. It was a decent looking bat, nice condition, some weird purple spray paint on it but nothing a little remover and some elbow grease couldn't-

Easy, klepto. This isn't Pawn America. You can get your own cricket bat once you make it out of here alive. If you make it out of here alive. I sighed, my palms slick as they gripped the black tape that wound around the length of my hockey stick. Things were not good; I was outnumbered, outgunned, outmatched. Still, something told me I wasn't outwitted. These guys were big and menacing, but I doubted they had a complete set of brain cells between them. If I played it smart, I might have a chance of getting out of here.

"Alright," I said, trying my best to sound confident. I spun my stick in a lazy loop, pacing slowly back and forth. "Now that I have you punks where I want you, who's in charge around here?" I pointed my weapon at the tall man, a burly caramel skinned guy who seemed to be holding a disfigured car door as a weapon. He looked like he could just whack somebody upside the head with the whole Cadillac. Or at least with a Prius.

"Is it you, big fella?" I asked jovially, and before he could answer I shifted the curved tip of my stick to the lady with the mohawk. "Nah, it's you right? That hair is a sure sign." The thugs looked around at each other, still sneering, but a little puzzedly now. They hadn't expected the good ol' switcheroo. Things were going well; I just wish I could tell that to my heart. I felt like a hummingbird or a small dog when its owner gets home. A million miles a minute. If these guys didn't take me out I was pretty sure I'd just go into cardiac arrest and drop dead on the pavement. As I continued to spout nonsense on auto pilot, talking for dear life, I was cut off by a man dressed in a fine purple tuxedo. He stepped forward from the crowd of gangsters, and as I inspected him I caught notice of a dragon tattoo climbing the side of his neck, and a pair of brass knuckles on his fists. He flicked aside a cigarette he had been smoking, and looked me up and down.

"Are you kidding me? You're just a kid," he said, looking back at his cronies. "He's just a kid! How old is he, 14? 15?"

"Actually, just turned 21. And I'm having a helluva birthday," I said, swinging my hockey stick so it rested on my shoulder. "Listen, buddy. I don't know who you are, or why you and the rest of the Minnesota Vikings are on my ass tonight, but I'll tell you what. You all walk away now, and none of you will spend the night in jail. And that's for the lucky ones."

None of them budged. They all kept their eyes on either me or the guy in the suit. He was clearly the leader. He narrowed his dark eyes at me. I felt a tingle travel down my spine. He held himself with some serious confidence, and he looked like he was made of liquid titanium. He was a seriously scary guy, and he hadn't even done anything yet. Oh, boy, I really was in the hole. The guy tilted his head a little.

"Nice mask, kid," he said, lighting another cigarette and taking a long drag. He blew the smoke into a huge ring above his head, and as it floated up and away he spoke again. "What's your name?"

"Oh, no, I'm not tellin' you that, pal," I said, my feet itching to run, to sprint out of here. But there was nowhere to go: I was trapped. And in the equation of fight or flight, I was running out of options. The guy grinned, blowing more smoke from his nostrils. He finished the second cigarette and stomped it beneath a shiny loafer.

"Let's trade then," he said. He extended a hand towards me. "I'm called Hun." I looked at the hand, and cautiously walked forward to shake it.

"Jones. Casey Jones."


	2. Promise Me Casey

I hit the concrete before I knew what happened. One second I was shaking hands with Hun, and the next I was flat on my back, stars blurring my vision, pain arcing up and down my spine. A clean, black leather shoe planted itself on my throat heavily, and the pressure mounted in my head. I couldn't breathe. I felt like my head would pop off any second, like a cork in a champagne bottle. I clawed weakly at Hun's leg, and heard him laugh at my feeble attempts. He drove the heel of his loafer into my throat, and the edges of my vision darkened. Then, all of a sudden there was a loud crash of glass breaking, and everything went dark.

At first I thought I was dead. I half expected to see an old Middle Eastern man at the end of a long tunnel, though realistically that was probably the opposite direction of where I was headed. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with my Fate yet, because through the blackness I heard the sounds of movement. Shuffling feet, a few muffled cries of pain. At some point Hun's foot was no longer on my neck, and I gasped for breath, feeling the sweet air fill my lungs as I heaved. I was alive. I reached for the golf bag on my back, to find that my hockey stick and golf club had fallen out when I hit the ground. I felt around the concrete blindly, trying to grab a hold of one of my weapons, or any weapon for that matter. When my hand met something, it was not made of wood or metal, but something slimy, almost like scales. I pulled my hand back as fast as I could, and I was surprised to hear a voice through the shadows.

"Aw, dude, gross! Something touched my foot!" it said, clearly in disgust. I heard a grunt and the sound of a body hitting the concrete.

"Well, Mikey, this _is_ New York. It was probably a rat or a hobo," said another voice, this one behind me. I spun towards it. Fists balled up to protect my face.

"Guys, be quiet! Remember what Master said, a ninja is silent," a third voice said, and I heard several thumps and a groan. Then there was a quiet clang above me, on a fire escape or something, and I looked up. I was thinking a bit more clearly, all of the adrenaline putting my senses on high alert. As I craned my neck up, I saw a large shadow disappear over the edge of a rooftop. It looked like… No way. I must have just been worked up from all of the crazy stuff going on but. It sort of looked like…

A huge turtle.

I shook my head, rubbing my eyes. After searching for a few moments, I discovered my hockey stick and golf club, and even the cricket bat the mohawk girl had been holding. My eyes had finally adjusted to the night time light of the city, and I was surprised at the sight I found.

All of the thugs that had been after me, minus Hun, were tied together, most of them unconscious, and sitting in a circle. There were a few dazed groans, and blood and bruises covered all of them. I furrowed my eyebrows beneath my mask, and looked back up to where I had seen the shadow climbing onto the roof. Nothing was there. I stood slowly, a jolt of pain coming from my back. I used my hockey stick as leverage to fully stand, and as I walked past the group of I kicked one of them in the shins. They didn't budge. I pulled two things from my golf bag; a cell phone and a can of spray paint. With the paint can, I began to set to work on the brick wall I had been trapped by, and with the phone I dialed 911. I informed the cops that there were some armed thugs waiting for them at my location, and I hung up as quickly as possible, putting my things into my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. I had very little time until the cops got here, and I didn't want them thinking I was one of those punkers. I took off at a jog.

* * *

I can hardly begin to describe the headache that I woke up with the following morning. I struggled to sit up from the couch I was sleeping on, and when I went to splash water on my face I found a massive purple bruise on my neck. I sighed, and when I finished toweling the water off of my voice I nearly jumped. Standing behind me in the mirror was my roommate, Angel.

Angel was 5-nothing and built like a gymnast, all legs. She had short hair, dyed neon blue, and at present she was wearing nothing but one of my t-shirts, which feel nearly to her knees. I rolled my eyes as she reached past me to grab her toothbrush.

"You're jumpy today," she murmured, still clearly half asleep. Our bathroom is small, so I had to back up so that she could reach the sink and begin brushing her teeth. I shrugged, leaving the room to find a change of clothes. "Wa' da heck happen' to your neck?" She called to me, through a mouthful of tooth paste.

"Don't ask," I called back, my head smarting from the loud noise. I threw on a decent pair of dark jeans and a plain white shirt.

"Why'd you shleep on da coush?" she asked. I heard her spit, and the water ran briefly, followed by a period of gargling, a second spit, and more water. Then she came to join me in our living room. "Couldn't find the bed?"

Angel and I's apartment is small. It's just a living room connected to a miniature kitchen, a bathroom with a shower that never gets hot enough, and a single bedroom. Usually we share a queen sized bed, with the exceptions of nights when I'm on patrol or Angel is with her college friends. Sometimes she tells me I should hang with them, that social interaction is good for me. I always tell her I didn't go to college for a reason. Too much like high school. She usually doesn't pry.

"I figured you didn't want my sweaty butt hogging the blankets," I said, flicking on the tv. Angel must have used it last, because instead of hockey or monster trucks that came onto the screen, a woman with a blond up-do and too much makeup was talking into a Channel 9 microphone. Behind her was police tape surrounding a painfully familiar alleyway. The camera zoomed in on the wall behind the reporter, to a big black skull that had been spray painted onto it. I pinched the bridge of my nose; I could practically feel Angel glaring daggers at me with those blue eyes. I went to change the channel, but Angels tiny hand closed on the remote as I did. She was staring at me intently. I sighed, meeting her gaze. When I looked, though, I didn't see any anger, just fear. Worry.

"Was that you?" she asked softly. I pursed my lips and nodded wordlessly. Her jaw clenched. She took her hand off of mine and stalked over to the kitchenette, pouring herself a glass of water and drinking it down, before pouring a second glass and sitting down next to me on the couch. She looked at the tv, where the reporter was talking avidly with one of the thugs I had tangled with, along with a police officer. I opened my mouth to talk, but Angel beat me to it. "That's what happened to your neck, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Casey, I thought you were done with this! You said you were done with all this!"

"Angel, I wasn't-"

"What if someone followed you here? We'd both be dead! Do you want to die? Is that what this is? Are you freaking Christian Bale Batman?" she was practically shouting now, and the stars returned to my eyes from the pain it caused my head.

"Angel, please. My head is killing me." I muttered, squeezing my eyes closed. She lowered her voice, but only slightly.

"You don't have a job. You don't have any friends. The only thing you do is go out at night and beat up on criminals and petty thugs," she rubbed her temples.

"This isn't your life, Angel, I don't get why you're so upset about this," I said. I was lying.

"Because I'm your g-" she stopped herself, taking a sip from her glass. Her ears were twinged a bit pink. "I'm your friend, Casey. I care about you. And I don't want to go to your funeral when you're 21. Don't make me do that." She was breathing heavily, her little hands shaking a bit. The only time I had seen her this shaken up was when her father had died, a few years ago. We were both still in high school together then, and I as the only friend that showed up at the funeral. I know what it's like to lose parents: my dad killed my mom in a drunken rage, and then he killed himself in regret. I shuddered with the memory of it. I placed a hand on her slender shoulder, tracing it gently with my thumb. She shook her head.

"Just promise you won't mess around with those guys, Casey," she said. She looked me square in the face, tears doing nothing to cloud the ferocity there.

"Why? What's so special about that group of purple punks?"

"Promise. Me. Casey," she said through gritted teeth. "They're bad news. I want you to stay way clear. Way, way clear. Ok?"

I nodded and told her I promised. She wrapped her arms around my neck, breathing hot breath into my collar, and for a second I wasn't sure why I felt bad. Something was nagging in the back of my head. I only realized what it was after she had left for her first class of the day. I felt guilty.

I felt guilty because I had lied.


	3. Breaking Point

For most of the day I didn't do very much. After popping some of Angels prescription painkillers and a half gallon of water, I took a power nap on the couch. When I woke up several hours later, my headache was gone, but my throat and back still throbbed dully. I realized I had left the tv on, and now the news team was covering sports.

"Damnit, Rangers lost again," I muttered, standing with mild effort from my groove in the couch to lumber over into the kitchenette. As I did, a blanket fell off of me, and I realized that Angel must have came home at some point. Probably at lunch. The thought of food reminded me why I had gotten up in the first place, and I began to rummage through the refrigerator. We were cutting it low on food these days, what with me out of a job. Angel worked part time as a waitress in some sleezy pizza joint, but she had classes so she didn't have a lot of hours to clock in. We were basically living paycheck to paycheck. Not to mention rent wasn't getting any cheaper. I don't know how that girl managed to pay for the apartment, utilities, and feed both of us, but she did. I shook my head with a wry smile. She's too good for me.

I settled on some leftovers that Angel had brought home from work the previous weekend. Cold pepperoni; a true classic. Regardless, food was food, and I hadn't had a decent bit of it since before my escapade the previous night, so I wolfed down the remaining half of a pizza and stuffed the empty box in our tiny garbage can as best I could before returning to the couch. The sports were evidently over, and a nervous looking woman was standing in front of the camera. She caught my eye, and I raised an eyebrow. I couldn't hear what she was saying, and I searched for a few moments to find the remote, which was stuck between the couch cushions. I turned up the volume.

"-should really be on the lookout. The number of people with criminal records filing assault charges against what they call, 'frasked meaks'" she stuttered for a second, her cheeks turning the same brilliant scarlet of her hair, "excuse me. Masked freaks. The number of victims to these vigilante attacks has grown astronomically in recent months. Many of the sites have reportedly born this symbol." An image of a spraypainted black skull was displayed in the corner of the screen, above her head. However, I tuned out the rest of what she said. She was pretty, and I love it when pretty girls talk about me, but I was significantly distracted at the moment. I couldn't help thinking about yesterday, which was to be expected I guess. The thing was though, I wasn't thinking about getting my butt whooped in two seconds flat, or about almost becoming fried Casey from a molotov. I was thinking about that shadow on the roof, and what I had heard them say before they left.

A ninja is silent.

I've watched a lot of movies. I actually pride myself in some of the moves I picked up from watching Bruce Lee movies, and Donny Yen is my favorite actor. But as far as I knew, ninjas hadn't existed for a hundred years or something. There was no way that a group of them had showed up in New York in the 21st century, and just happened to save my butt from some street thugs. None of it added up. And even if they were ninjas, why would they be wearing a huge turtle costume? Turtles, from what I learned in school, are supposed to be slow and steady. Ninjas are quick and silent. They don't exactly mix, I mean: what's the logic in a huge turtle ninja? I shivered for a second, wishing that I had brought a coat with me when I went outside.

I stopped moving.

I took in my surroundings.

I didn't remember opening the window and climbing onto the fire escape, or hopping up onto the roof. I didn't remember reaching into a small unused electrical closet to retrieve my mask and golf bag. The wind blew through my shirt like it was paper, and messed around with what hair wasn't protected by the mask. A shiver travelled up my spine, and I don't think it was entirely from the weather. I was being watched. I looked around me, surveying the nearby rooftops. I must have slept for longer than I had thought, because the sun was beginning to set, the lights of New York City beginning to ignite. Soon the city would be aglow with the night, and to the passerby on the street below, myself and anyone else on these roofs would be practically invisible. I squinted, eyes and ears wide open, casting sweeping looks across every roof I could see. There was nothing. The chill I had felt was gone. Either I was paranoid, or whover was watching me was a master of stealth.

Images of people in black masks with swords danced in my head, and I ignored them. Ninjas aren't a thing anymore. Not real ones anyway. If the guys who had helped me out last night had claimed to be ninjas, it was probably part of their shtick, like my hockey mask was for me. Every vigilante has one. That had to be it. I made my way back down the fire escape and back through the window into Angel and I's apartment. I stopped in only briefly to throw on my jacket, an old navy blue leather piece with too may zippers and not enough pockets. It wasn't incredible to look at, but it kept the wind off, and as I left the warmth of my apartment for the third time in two days, I was feeling a bit more confident.

Maybe I was buzzing off the painkillers. Maybe I had hit my head worse than I thought. But when my sneakers hit the concrete, and I saw the goons step out from around the corner of the alley, a big ass smile crept across my face. It sucked that these guys couldn't see through my mask, because they probably would've dropped unconscious just from the sight of my big tombstone toothed grin. I pulled out my old hockey stick, and patted my palm with it menacingly. I heard another pair of footsteps behind me, and my smile got even bigger. Four thugs in total, not a gun in sight. I shrugged my shoulders back and forth, cracked my neck a couple of times, and held my stick in both hands.

"Alright," I said tauntingly, "who's gettin' checked first?"


	4. Bad Decisions

I didn't even give them a chance to say anything. I booked the few yards between me and my nearest target, a short and wiry guy, my age, with a baseball bat. I threw a wide sideways swing at his head, and my hockey stick collided with a satisfying _crack!_ A heavy bruise formed instantly, along with some thick, red blood. The guy crumpled like he was an accordion. I wasted no time turning to his friend, swiping down at him. This one, a heavier built man with a bald spot and a long handlebar mustache, threw his arms up to cover his head, and as my stick collided harmlessly with the fleshy parts of his forearms, I kicked out a sneakered shoe, right between his legs. He made a sound that just wasn't natural for someone his size, and his arms left their post above his head to cover his sensitive bits. I whacked down again, and his eyes crossed. He was out before he hit the ground.

I spun around, and started down the alley towards the other two. They looked to each other, then at me, then to each other again, and bolted in the opposite direction. One of them was in high heels, and the other had small legs, so it wasn't difficult to catch up. I sprang forward, tackling the tall woman in heels to the ground. She screamed, and as I drew back my fist to start slugging her, I froze.

She wasn't armed. Not even a bat, or mace. She had her arms up over her face, and she was stammering out pleas for mercy. The smaller person who had been with her was a teen, and while he held baseball bat in one hand, he had a baseball _glove_ on the other. He was gawking at me, eyes wide. My face heated up. I looked at the woman, the kid, and then back at the two collapsed in the alley.

There wasn't a stitch of purple on any of them.

The older man with the mustache was dressed in a polo and shorts, the guy my age was in a matching uniform to the kid that was staring a hole through the back of my head. I began to stand, to get off of the woman, when a sharp blow struck me in the back of the head. The sound of metal on bone echoed into the alley, and as I fell face first to the concrete I knew that the teen had clubbed me with his bat. I saw, through blurry eyes, the woman scramble to her feet and grab the teen by the arm, running over to the other two. They dragged the older man to his feet, and he rubbed his head. The other guy didn't budge. The teen pulled out a cell phone and I cursed to myself groggily. He was calling the cops. I started up, trying to get my legs under me. I managed to get on all fours and crawl my way over to the wall of my apartment building. I used the piping running down the side of it to drag myself to a hunched over standing position.

There was a high pitched shout, and I watched the woman point at me, tugging the teen and the man by their arms. They all shot glances at the guy bleeding in the alley, but they were too scared of me to stay. They took off. It wasn't more than five minutes later that the squad cars pulled up, and a trio of officers pinned me to the hood of one. They read me my rights, and threw me, handcuffed and ashamed, into the back. It all happened too quickly for my dizzy head to really pick out any details, but as I looked out the window of the car, I could have sworn I saw Angel watching from our window.

* * *

I spent a few days in the nearest cell they could drop me in. My stubble got long, my hair filthy and plated by sweat. I was to be put on trial within the week. Most of the time I just slept, or stared at the cieling. I was furious with myself. How could I be so stupid? What was wrong with me? The entire day of the "attack" as guards and attorneys had begun referring to it as, was a blur. I had slept through it, or was too groggy about it to have paid any attention. One day, I started thinking: maybe Angel was right. I had been out every night for a month. I had hardly gotten any normal sleep, I'd gotten punched and tazed and beaten up more times than I could count. And for what? All I had to show for it was a rescued cat, a few retrieved purses, and a bad track record with the police. Thrown in two baggy eyes for the price of one, and a whole set of matching ugly bruises, and you had the Casey Jones Bad Idea Super Package.

Ironically, the day my roommate decided to visit was the day my trial was in session, me not in attendence.

I was laying on my back, eyes glazed over and pointed more or less at the cieling, when I heard the loud buzzer of somebody entering the cell block. I was the only resident; the rest of the human cages were empty. I guess I was the biggest idiot of the week. I turned my head towards the cell door without interest, assuming that it was just another officer checking to make sure I wasn't Shawshanking my way out, or a lawyer come to ask if I was _sure_ I wasn't crazy. At this point, if they asked me that, I wasn't sure what I would say. However, neither cop nor D.A. entered my field of view. Instead, a head of bright blue hair atop a five foot nothing body stalked in front of my cell. My heart dropped into my stomach. Oh, she was going to kill me.

After what felt like fourty five minutes of swearing, banging on the bars, and calling me a sociopath, Angel managed to take a few deep breaths. I remained silent. I didn't even leave my bed. I just looked at her. Some of my confusion and fear must have been in my eyes because when she met them she bit her lip, a few tears forming. When she spoke again, she was much softer.

"Listen, Jones," she said, quietly. She gestured for me to come closer. I stood up, wincing at the dull aches that covered my body, and leaned on the bars in front of her. She instantly plugged her nose. "Yikes, alright, back it up. Not that close." I rolled my eyes, and we shared a much needed half second of laughter before she continued.

"I have a question. A really important question, like we're talking potentially life and death," she said, her eyes suddenly locked onto the shoelaces of her dirty Converse All Stars. I creased my eyebrows, and reached through the bars to tilt her chin so she had to look at me. She pulled back and looked away.

"Angel, what's going on? Are you ok?" I asked. She was starting to worry me. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, scratching her head.

" _I_ am fine, Casey. I am going to be fine. You, on the other hand," she blew air from her mouth, exhaling every last bit oxygen in her lungs in the process, and ran her hands through her hair several times. That's what she does when she's nervous. That made my stomach join my heart in my feet. "Casey. Casey, did you… Did you take any of my pain meds?"

"Oh, for the luvva-" I started.

"Oh, you did, ok, ooohh boy," she ran her hands through her bangs several times, pacing back and forth in front of the bars.

"What? Angel, cheese and rice, what is it? Are they drugs? Like not medicational ones?" I asked. She took several hyperventilating breaths.

"Yeah, um, so," she stopped in front of me, holding my hands through the cell bars. "You are either going to experience the worst Irritable Bowels Syndrome of all time, or uh," She awkwardly slid a thumb across her neck, stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, and let her head fall limp before laughing nervously. I stared at her in shock for a minute, and then we both started pacing holes in the floor.

"What?! You had _poison_ in your _TYLENOL BOTTLE?"_ I shouted.

"Not poison, it's, well," her hair was becoming a birds nest, "it's sort of a warm up. It's the first drink when you go to a bar"

"What kind of whiskey shot kills you?!"

"It's not for sure yet, Case. When did you take it? Tuesday? Monday?"

"Saturday."

She stopped, looked at me, and her pupils practically didn't exist. All color drained from her caramel skin. She dropped to a squat, visciously assaulting her hair with her hands. She stared at the ground for a minute, ignoring my attempts to talk at her. After that, she stood, hands calmly at her sides, and let out a long breath.

"Casey, listen very carefully. When you get home, look in the medicine cabinet, behind the tampons,"

"Wha-?!"

"Oh, _man up Jones it's just a freakin' tampon!_ " she shouted. I shut my mouth so fast my teeth knocked together. "Look behind the box, there should be a pill bottle labeled "stool softener". Don't make that face. How many painkillers did you take?" I held up two fingers. "Take two of them. And Casey you need to go straight. Home. Ok? You cannot stop if you want to live."

"Angel, what the hell is in the second pill?" I called to her. She was halfway down the hall towards the exit. "And how am I supposed to get out of here? My trial is happening right now!"

"Straight home, Casey. I mean it! Don't wait around." Was all I heard in response, and then she was out of my vision, and the door closed.

I don't know how long it was. Minutes, hours. But some amount of time later, the doors to my cell opened, and a guard was helping me out. Apparently, I had gotten off on a temporary insanity charge. The drugs I had taken from Angel were, according to her and the jury, substantial enough of a judgement clouder that while on them I was not held accountable for my actions. She had convinced them that the mask and hockey stick were high school varsity memorobilia. Despite the growing pain in my head and stomach, I couldn't help but smile ruefully. That girl. I didn't deserve her.

I was assigned a supervisor, Mrs. Something or another. At the time I met her my head was swimming in my own sweat, and it was ringing like a doorbell. She drove me home, talking about something I couldn't understand, since most mermen don't speak english. Only fish talk. I waved her off when we arrived at my apartment and I staggered up the stairs, swung the door open and nearly collapsed onto the couch before remembering Angel's instructions. Behind the tampons, as she had said, was a small orange pill bottle labeled "stool softener." I poured two large, purple pills from it into my hand and swallowed them in one go, so much saliva had built up in my mouth I didn't even need any water. After that, I swayed woozily into the bedroom, and my legs gave out, dropping me onto my bed and into pleasant dreams.


	5. Casey, Smash

When I finally woke up, everything hurt. And I mean everything; every cell of my body felt like it had been beaten up by Mike Tyson and then thrown through the spin cycle at a laundromat in Brooklyn. I lay in bed, face down, for at least an hour before I dared to turn and open my eyes. To my surprise, the light of my room did not pierce my eyeballs and stab me in the brain like I expected it to. In fact, my head was mostly fuzzy at that point, more buzzing and blurry than in pain. I slowly moved to a sitting position, and rubbed my face with my hands, trying for a moment to piece together the events of the past week.

There were the thugs that I had gotten tangled with. I thought I had been stopping a run of the mill jewelry store robbery, but they turned out to be a lot more trouble than they were worth, particularly that Hun guy. Then there were the supposed ninjas, who came out of nowhere to save me for no apparent reason. Who were those guys, really, and why did they care about me? And on top of that, I had no idea what was in Angel's pill bottles. The last thought spurred me to my feet, and I went across the hall into the bathroom. I checked the medicine cabinet: both of Angels pill bottles were gone. She must have stopped by and taken them while I was unconscious. I peeked around the living room to see if she had left me a message, and found my cell phone on the coffee table. I had over a dozen missed calls, all from Angel, and just as I went to call her back, my phone began to vibrate, and a picture of my roommate smiling with her high school diploma appeared on the screen of my phone; I answered after the second ring.

"Angel?"

"Casey, _finally._ Are you ok? How do you feel? Do you ne-"

"Woah, hey, slow down," I said, taking a seat on the couch. I took a look out the window. It was probably middle of the day, by the amount of light coming in. I ran a hand over my face in an attempt to rub away the sleep, and wrinkled my nose at the uncomfortable courseness I found there. My stubble had grown considerably overnight. Maybe a side effect of the medications I had taken, I wasn't sure. After a moment of scratching at my stubbly chin I realized I had tuned out of Angel talking to me, as she was repeating my name. "Yeah, sorry, what?"

"You should probably drink something. Eat something too, I left a few pizza boxes in the fridge," she said. As the words left her mouth I realized with a jolt of discomfort that I was starving, and incredibly parched. Another side effect? Regardless, I poured myself several large glasses of water and transferred a generous portion of pizza onto a paper plate, and with no hesitation began to tear it apart and devour every last piece of cheesy goodness, entirely cold. I couldn't care less in that moment. It was only after I had eaten the entire pizza that I heard laughter on the other end, and slowed my chewing sheepishly before swallowing.

"Eh, sorry, Ange," I said, taking a gulp of water. "Are those pills appetite stimulators or somethin'?" The laughter subsided, and when my roommate spoke there was no hint of a smile in her voice. She sounded deadly serious. She let out a sigh before she said anything.

"Casey, its not the pills. Well, maybe it is, but that isn't the only thing. I mean- Well, it's sort of, um," she fumbled with her words for a little while longer, clearly trying to find a way to tell me that wouldn't upset me. I was both touched and concerned about that fact. Eventually Angel must have gathered some composure and confidence into what she was going to say, because she sounded much calmer and more controlled when she finally adressed me again. "Casey, you've been asleep for 4 days."

It sunk in, and it made sense. The stubble and hunger. Hell, I get the munchies and a 5 o'clock shadow after taking a cat nap, let alone sawing logs for 4 whole days. Angel said some more things, but I wasn't paying attention. I turned on the news, hoping to catch a glimpse of the cute woman I had seen before. I did. That deep red hair, almost shoulder length, just did it for me. And those doe eyes, big and brown. The lady was beautiful in a quiet way, the way she held herself you could tell she wasn't used to people paying attention to her. It sort of made you wonder what she was doing holding a microphone in front of a camera. What brought a sheepish quiet woman like her to the life of a reporter. She was standing in front of a line of police tape, and as my eyes panned over her shoulder I narrowed my eyes. Behind the pretty reporter was a large broken shop window. I don't know why I thought my one man war on crime would have actually changed New York City. I rubbed my chin again.

"Casey are you even listening to me?" came Angel angrily in my ear. I winced. I definitely wasn't.

"Sorry, I'm still a little groggy," I lied. "One more time?" She clicked her tongue, and I was positive she saw through my white lie.

"I said you should take it easy for a few days, but after that I'm going to get you out and about. You're on probation, so you're not allowed to go out at night without a chaperone." she said, "and I have some people I want you to meet." The way she said the final bit did not exactly fill me with confidence that I would enjoy the people she wanted to introduce me to. Unfortunately, if I wanted to avoid getting stir crazy in this tiny apartment, I would have to walk around with my fingers in Angels belt loop. And that meant meeting her friends. Great.

The conversation after that point was the regular niceties, with her telling me she had to get back to class and to not push myself. I dismissed all of her warnings and cautionary words, but under the guise of self sufficiency I was really thankful to have someone like Angel in my corner. I had no clue where I would be now if she hadn't come through for me 4 days ago. A jail cell, maybe dead, or even both. I shook my head, thinking again that I did not deserve my roommate as a friend, before my stomach rumbled. I had just ate, hadn't I? Ah, well. I had 4 days of not eating to make up for. I went back to the little kitchenette to fetch some more pizza, but as I reached for the handle of the refrigerator door, I froze.

The metal that was the handle of my refrigerator had been crunched, or warped, or bent, or something. It was mangled, and it looked to all the world like someone had grabbed it and crushed it in their hand. Solid metal, probably an inch or so thick.I looked back to my own hand. I must have done that, in my rush to feed myself, but… How? I mean, sure, I've got more upper body strength than the average Joe, since I work out and tussel with punkers but… Even I couldn't crush a piece of metal with my bare hands. And even if I possibly could, it would require some serious effort. I didn't even remember grabbing the fridge very hard, I felt as if I had just opened it regularly, putting as much force as I always had on it. Slowly, deliberately, I moved my hand towards the door handle. I grabbed onto an area of the metal that was not warped, and squeezed my hand around it.

It was like crushing a soda can. It was easy. Ridiculously, impossibly easy. I shouldn't have been able to do that. The metal warped and crumpled effortlessly under my hand, and when I pulled it back to inspect the damage, it was just like the other area. Totally messed up. I took a couple steps back, running both of my hands up and through my shaggy black hair, and for a momsnt I was frozen in place. I stared, empty eyed, at the broken refrigerator door handle, trying to understand how I had just done what I had. My mind eventually settled on the only rational explanation: I was dreaming, or else hallucinating from Angel's drugs. As my brain was performing its cross country ski routine, it took a pit stop there. Angel's drugs. She never even told me what they were. Were they hallucinagenic? Maybe I just needed to sleep them off? Or more water. Yeah, I was feeling thirsty. I went to the sink and drank a couple more tall glasses down, and came up gasping for air on the other end of them. I glanced at the fridge, and to my dismay saw that it was still busted up, so I went back the couch for a more welcome view.

I don't know when I dozed off watching the Channel 9 News, but I was woken up by a gentle, strong fingered hand on my shoulder, shaking me softly, and then much more violently until I grunted at it to stop. Apparently satisfied that I had made a noise, and proven to be alive or something, Angel gave a "hmph" and stalked away. I heard a pizza box being broken up and folded into a waste basket, and a cup being loaded into a dishwasher. Underneath those things I heard several muttered comments about my ability to pick up after myself, and from my less than comfy spot on the couch I gave a wry half smile. What would I do without her? The smile was wiped away easily when my roommate spoke up from the kitchenette.

"Oh, shit, Casey," she said. I sat up, the genuine concern (and almost… fear?) in her voice waking me up instantly. I looked over the back of the sofa to her, pushing a few rogue strands of greasy hair away from my probably not too great looking face. Angel was standing next to the fridge, fingers tracing the grooves in it that greatly resembled my own clenched fist. As I took in the sight of my roommate I picked up on a few things. Firstly, the fridge was still mangled, and Angel was clearly taking notice, meaning that my hopes of being totally high off of a hallucinagen were shot. Secondly, Angel's eyes looked like she had been thrown into an enclosure full of tigers at feeding time, her small chest rising and falling rapidly, her heart visibly pumping behind her dark grey shirt. Finally, in the hand of hers that wasn't inspecting the fridge handle, was a small canvas bag. I jerked my stubbly chin at it.

"What's in the bag, Ange?" I asked, trying to divert attention away from the elephant in the room. She started to say something, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head, but bit back the remark, choosing to think a bit more before she spoke again.

"Well, it's a Louie's Pizza uniform. Before I discovered this," she gestured to the fridge, "little problem, I was hoping we'd shower you up for your first night of work. Unfortunately for me, and maybe fortunately for you, clocking in might have to wait a bit longer. I didn't expect the pills to activate so quickly, we've lost a few weeks of adjusting time." I frowned at her, getting to my feet and crossing the room to her. As I did, I took a mental note of her flinching visibly when I moved, like she was worried I would sprint forward and snap her neck in an instant. I mean, I had violently attacked some innocent lady a few days beforehand, but something told me that had little to do with it.

"Angel. What the hell did I put in me?" I asked, laying a hand as gingerly as I possibly could on her shoulder. I could feel the muscles there twitching.

"Well, Casey, we um. We don't really know exactly what it is but um. Well, most of us just call it the Ooze." she said, looking off to the side, purposely avoiding my gaze. I furrowed my eyebrows deeply.

"We? Who is we, Ange?" I asked. She bit her lip, eyes darting little figure 8's in the floor. I gave her shoulder a little shake and she sucked in a breath, eyes twitching. I quickly retreated my grip. Had I hurt her?

"We," she said, putting down the canvas bag and pulling up a corner of her shirt to reveal a tattoo crawling up from her hip bone to her rip. A spiraling Chinese dragon in a deep violet. "As in the Purple Dragons."


	6. Clearing My Head

The Purple Dragons.

My roommate, my best friend, was a member of a gang of criminals I had been busting my ass to shut down. If that ain't a kick upside the head, I'm not sure I know what is. How had I never seen that tattoo before, I freaking lived with her. How could I be so blind? And did this mean she was my enemy? Was she watching me, studying my weaknesses? No, that doesn't make any sense, if she wanted me out of the way why work so hard to get me bailed out of jail. If she really wanted me gone she could have just left me to rot. So what was her angle? And what in the hell was in those pill she gave me? Why was I suddenly Superman strong?

I must have been staring blankly for a really long time, because she snapped her fingers in front of my face.

"Casey," she said, cocking one hip out and putting a hand on it, "paging Casey Jones? You in there, buddy?"

I spat out an unintelligable syllable, then squinted at her. She looked me dead in the eyes, not even trying to seem ashamed of keeping this secret from me. She was confident in her life. Now that I knew her other half, it was like she was completely uninhibited. Like she had reached her final form, she was full to the brim with strength and stability. She was who she was, and what she had been presenting to me had been a lie the entire time. The whole time I had thought that she was just a normal New York girl, trying to keep her psychotic friend Casey Jones from risking his neck as a mask wearing vigilante. I thought that was why she was so adamant that I stay away from the Purple Dragons, that I stay away from the crime fighting life. But that wasn't it at all, instead she wanted to keep me out of her own shady dealings, she didn't want me to interfere.

"Casey, I know you're probably feeling a lot of things right now, just listen to me. There's a lot you don't know and there's a lot that I still can't tell you, bu-"

"More you can't tell me?" I snarled, "more secrets, Ange? More lies? You're a criminal, you're part of a freaking _street gang._ Do you even realize how ridiculous that is? How long have you been rolling with those guys?"

I could tell she was upset. Even through her new confidence in telling the truth, the fact that I was angry with her still upset her. Which was satisfying and a bit reassuring, and I felt guilty that I appreciated her sadness so much. She ran a hand through her hair, toussling it all up on the back end, and bit her lip, picking her words carefully.

"I was born into the gang, Casey. I never had a choice. This tattoo was not an option," she crossed her arms, closing herself off to my judgement. "My dad, he was. Sort of the leader of the whole operation. When he and my mom got together he said that he would leave that life behind and raise a family with her, but, well… When she left him, he just couldn't handle it. He went back in, and he dragged me in after him. I was just a kid, I didn't _know_ any better. He kept telling me one day we'd be rich enough that we wouldn't need to do this anymore. We'd buy a house in Hawaii and live there comfortably. I'd never have to worry about a thing."

She was staring at her feet, clad in mismatched pastel colored socks. One blue, one red. She paused in the middle of her story, wiped at her nose a bit, and slipped her hands into her pockets, rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet. She sniffled, and gave a wry smile.

"And then he died, you know. He got shot by some kid with a handgun. All because he didn't want to sell hard drugs to a minor. My dad died because he still had some good in him, even when he was knee deep in the hell hole. How is that fair, Casey? How is that fair?" she took a step forward, and rested her forehead on my shoulder, just above the collarbone. "How is that fair?" I felt something wet and hot fall on my chest and bleed through my shirt, followed by another. The tears dripped silently onto me, and I just stood there, arms at my side, staring directly ahead. She kept asking me an answer that I knew the answer to. It wasn't the answer anyone wanted to hear, but it was the truth.

How was it fair?

It wasn't.

It wasn't fair, not even in the slighest. Good people die young, and bad people get to live and continue to be bad forever. There was nothing balanced about it, and that was the world. My arms moved on their own, up and around her, and my hand gently rubbed the small of her back, up between her shoulderblades and back down. At my touch, her shoulders convulsed and she began to sob. Loud, ugly sobs, with rapid, heaving breaths between each shuddering cry. Her tiny hands clutched my shirt, squeezing the fabric up in her fists. At that moment I swore a promise to myself, and to Angel. The first promise that I would keep in a long time.

When she had finished crying out every last tear she had, Angel straightened up, her back curt. Something told me that this was exactly what she needed. She had been uncharacteristically weepy and emotional these past few weeks. She was usually the more stoic between us. It must have been the burden of hiding these secrets from me. Now that it had been lifted, at least partially, from her shoulders, she stood powerfully before me, a nuclear bomb wrapped up in five feet of woman. Her eyes burned deep with blue flames, and she patted me on the chest, wiping at the wet spots.

"So, about _this_ whole situation," she accentuated the word 'this' by gesturing towards my hands and the refrigerator door. We both had a brief, nervous laugh. I got the feeling that neither of us really had any clue what was going on regarding that whole problem. "There's somebody I think you really need to meet. This is more his department than mine. In fact, he's the one we got those pill from in the first place." She slipped her feet into her shoes and snatched up her keys from the countertop, before turning to look me up and down.

"Casey, sweetheart, I love you to death buddy, but holy crap. Take a shower before we go dude, you look like a homeless person." she said, wrinkling her nose slightly. I rolled my eyes, before looking down at myself. She was definitely right. I was getting to the point where even I could smell myself, and it was much less than pleasant. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was the sheer scent of me that made her cry more than the memories of her father. I lumbered back to our room to retrieve some clothing that smelled less awful, and then to the bathroom for a much needed time under hot water.

I stood in the shower for much longer than I intended to, my mind racing to keep up with all of the radical events happening around me. Super strength aside, my best friend was a criminal and I was currently on probation. I had to be escorted around town. I tried to conjure up the image of the probation officer in charge of me, but failed. She was some very generic looking white woman, that much I remembered, but nothing else concrete. Brown hair, maybe. I think she had some kind of accent, definitely foreign. Eastern, maybe?

That reminded me. On top of the superpowers, the criminal roommate, and the probation, there was those freaking ninjas that saved me from Hun probably putting me six feet under. Who were those guys? The image of a figure with some kind of humped back disappearing over the lip of a rooftop played over and over in my mind, but I couldn't make anything of it. Other vigilantes? Had I inspired others to action with my heroics?

"Psh, not likely, Jones," I muttered to myself, dunking my head under the steaming water. No need to stoke my own ego like that. I'm sure they were just some other weirdos in masks, same as I was, who felt like lending a hand to a fellow do-gooder. Something like that, anyway.

Once I was showered and clothed again, Angel and I took off. She drives a beat up looking SUV, with paint that must have been white at some point but wasn't anymore. I'm not sure she'd ever seen a car wash in her life. Our apartment is near the heart of the city, but a ways away from the bay area. As we drove through town, I kept my eyes peeled. Despite it being the middle of the day, I had a sneaking suspicion that somebody was watching me. Somebody with bad intentions.

Our destination was a glass walled office building with a massive parking lot, complete with hedges and a fountain. On the side of the skyscraper, in white block font, were the letters _TCRI._ I held up a hand to shield my eyes from the sun, squinting at the building.

"What does TCRI stand for?" I asked Angel, looking at her over the roof of her car. She walked around the front and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me in tow as she walked purposefully towards the building, head down. She was trying not to draw attention to herself. I followed her lead.

"Techno-Cosmic Research Institute," she said quietly. "These guys work with NASA. They're all about weird space junk, and using alternative energies and whatever. They just released that new cell phone with the solar plates for charging, remember?" I did not remember. We entered a pair of automatic doors, and slipped into an elevator. Angel pressed the top floor. I cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Whoever you're taking me to see must be big money, if he's top floor material," I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. "I'm a bit under dressed."

She looked me up and down, eyes lingering a little too long on my chest, which was clad in a white tank top that made my pectoral muscles stick out. She shrugged with one shoulder.

"I don't think Baxter will mind too much. He's used to dealing with unprofessional thugs."


	7. The Evolution of Man, Stock-Man

The elevator gave a cheerful ding as we reached the penthouse floor of the TCRI building, the chrome doors gliding apart. Angel walked out without a moments hesitation, and I followed with a start. The floor was spacious, with a white floor, white cieling, and a few pieces of white furniture milling about. The walls were mostly massive glass windows, offering a beautiful view of the afternoon sun shining across the city of New York. The cars on the streets below were tiny, almost insignificant. I snorted. Who the heck drives in New York? There's a perfectly good subway system for a reason.

"Mr. Stockman?" Angel called out, looking around the large, and mostly empty, room. There was nothing but tables, couches, and a roomba swiveling its way between them. It made its way over to us, cleaning the small clumps of dirt that I must have dragged in with my old work boots. Angel took a few steps out into the center of the room. "Baxter, are you here? It's Angel. I have something you might want to see."

The reaction was immediate. A figure came tumbling down a set of stairs I had only just noticed. Baxter Stockman was a black man, clad in a pristine white labcoat that had the TCRI logo on it's breast pocket. He had a small, bushy mustache and his hair was well kept and tight. He was a skinny man, with long fingers and inquisitive eyes nearly hidden behind thick lensed glasses. He skidded across the floor, pocketing a screwdriver he was holding, and stopped in front of Angel, causing her to take step back.

"Is it one of the mutants?" he asked, straightening his glasses and peering over my roommate, apparently searching for mutants. Angel brushed some of her violet hair behind a slightly pointed ear, and shook her head. Before she could explain, Stockman make a _tsk_ sound, crossing his arms in front of him and looking dissapointed. "Darn. I would have been incredibly thankful to you, had it been." He went over to one of the small tables, and tapped on the glass surface. A pinging sound echoed from it, and the table flipped into the floor, replaced by a taller table covered in complicated looking science stuff.

"It can't be helped, I suppose," he said, tapping on the glass of this new table, spindly fingers flying across a keyboard I couldn't see. "It's still incredibly misfortunate. Even though it happened some… What, fifteen years ago now? That breakthrough was incredible. I still haven't been able to replicate the serum from that experiment. I have all my notes from the procedure, but we're mising a very key ingredient. It's quite possibly the rarest chemical on the planet, we've no way of reproducing it and we haven't been able to find another source of it since that batch." He shook his head, turning back towards us.

"Now, what is it you have to show me, Angel? Something interesting I hope," he asked, clapping his slender hands together. My roommate stepped aside, so that she no longer stood between myself and Stockman. The scientist blinked once, and then opened his hands in a puzzled manner. "What? Another one of your miscreants? I want nothing to do with him, even if he does look like someone fused a man with an ape."

"Woah, pal, who the hell do you think you're talking to?!" I snarled, my temper flaring up. Angel placed a warning hand on my forearm, her grip subtle but incredibly firm. I almost winced. Stockman seemed unfazed. He sighed, turning back to his instruments.

"Angel, you really can't be wasting my time with gorillas like this one," he said, back to typing on his imaginary keyboard, "I have things to discover. Experiments to conduct. This company gets nothing done when I slack off, so I have very little time for nincompoops and Neanderthals." I clenched my fist. Every word this guy said made me want to knock more and more of his shiny white teeth out. Angel's hand tightened around me, squeezing hard. I was gonna have a red mark there soon, super strength or not.

"Baxter, trust me," she said. She let go of me (not before flashing me a deadly look that read " _behave yourself"_ ) and approached Stockman. "If you see what my friend here can do, you'll find he's more than worth your time."

"What can he do, burp his ABC's?" he said, not looking up from his table. I exhaled heavily. It took more than I expected to hold myself back from pummeling this guy. I'm not normally the type that gets all worked up about name calling and insults. Plus, I actually can burp my ABC's. Angel looked at me and jerked her head towards Stockman.

"Casey? Show him," she said, cocking her hip out. She had a confident, almost sassy, smirk on her face as she waited for me to do my thing, her eyes glued to Stockman. She wanted to see his reaction when I showed him. Well, no reason to leave a lady waiting. I walked over to one of the tables in the room, a tall metal one probably used for parties. I stood next to it, and glanced over my shoulder at the scientist who was still glued to his inviible screen. I cleared my throat.

"Yo, Stick Man," I said. He stopped typing momentarily and I could see his jaw clench and unclench. He took a deliberate inhale before he answered.

"It's Stockman," he said, glancing up at me irritably. "What do you want, Homer Simpson?"

"How much do you care about this table?" I asked, pointing to it. He looked at it, an eyebrow raised, and then back at me.

"I've got several dozen more, it means nothing to me. Why do you ask?" he said, eyes narrowed. I must have peaked his curiosity.

"Just making sure you won't miss it," I said. Then, without another word, I slammed my fist down onto the top of it as hard as I could. There was a sound like someone stomping an aluminium can under their boot, and then a harsh crack, as the table was crushed into itself, flattened nearly to the floor. A long crack had formed in the white tiles, tracking away from where the bottom of the now destroyed table was and towards Stockman himself. The man in question was staring, mouth open, at my fist. He pulled his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, and blinked several times before putting them back on.

"You destroyed my table," he finally said, after a long silence. I shrugged. He approached cautiously to inspect the table, and I took a few steps back to give him room. He ran a hand along the now crunched leg of the table, and onto the crack in the floor. "This was solid steel," he added, turning to face me. His eyes were nervous, flitting all over my face, but there was something else there too. Excitement. I could tell just by looking at his dark eyes that every fiber of his being was humming with anticipation. I was something rare to him: something he had never seen before. To be honest, I was pretty surprised at myself. I hadn't known exactly how much damage I was going to do to the table, but judging from the fist shaped indent and the cracked floor, it didn't want to go for a round two with me. I looked down at my hand, flexing my fingers a little. This was insane. Stockman looked like he was about to ask me a question, but he thought better of it and turned to Angel instead.

"How is this even possible? Martial artists can break boards, and even cement blocks, sure, but that requires immense focus and training, and a very specific form. This is solid steel, several inches of it, and your," he didn't even look at me, just tossed a hand behind him in a halfhearted attempt to gesture at me, "colleague here crumpled it with a casual slam of his fist. He may as well have been knocking on a door made of tin foil." Angel had a smug air about her, and as she spoke she could not hold back her superior smile.

"I think we both know how this is possible, Baxter," she said. When Stockman made a confused face, she produced a small orange bottle with a white lid. The same bottle I had taken so-called painkillers out of several days prior. The same bottle that had changed my life. I saw the lightbulb turn on in Stockman's head.

"Incredible," he muttered. "The strength serum worked. I guess I am a genius after all."

"That's great, Storkboy-" I started.

"Stockman," he interrupted. I snorted.

"What is this stuff, and why did it almost kill and then give me superpowers?" I said. I was losing my patience with the situation; I needed to learn what I wanted to know quick, or I was gonna start getting cranky. And Stockman did not want to see me when I was cranky. He tapped his chin.

"Let me see. How do I put this is the ley," he pondered. Then he snapped his fingers, and scampered across the room. He hit a button on his glass table on the way, and the shades lowered on all of the huge windows. Then, from the cieling, a small black box with some type of lense popped out. After a moment's delay, an image appeared on the now covered windows. Angel came and stood next to me, and we both looked on while Stockman presented his high tech power point. He even had a laser pointer. "I suppose I have to start from the beginning don't I?"

"That would be preferable, yeah," I said. He nodded rapidly, and mumbled reassurances to himself that he was correct in some hypothesis or something. Then, projected onto the window, a test tube of bubbling liquid, a vivid green color, appeared.

"This is a Hydromutagenic Peroxide, or as most of your less intelligent peers have christened it, 'ooze'," he made air quotations with his fingers in a condescending matter. "The so-called ooze is a powerful catalystic agent for Darwinist reactionary processes. In terms you can understand, it essentially speeds up evolution itself. The very process in which nature refines and perfects itself and its denizens, including you and I, the homo sapien. This humble green liquid has the power, hidden inside it, to near-instantly transform a bio-oraganic substance or organism into it's optimal form for that exact moment. I like to call these rapid evolutionary reactions to the ooze, 'mutations'."

He flicked his wrist and the bubbling ooze disappeared, replaced by a flower in an empty glass case.

"This plant was kept inside an enviornment where it could not possibly survive: the subzero," as he spoke, a gloved hand appeared above the flower, holding a small plastic dropper. A single drop of the ooze was allowed to drip onto the flower. Within seconds of the ooze coming into contact with it, the flower's stem, leaves, and petals thickened and grew in size, darkening in color. "This flower is still alive, today, in the same temperature. I keep her in the R and D lab to remind my employees what we're going for. Of course, after plants we moved on to animals: rats, lizards, other reptiles. The same, instant adaptation to their enviornment, taking on forms that were best suited for their needs." He paused, flicking his wrist.

"However, like with most things, the problems began to arise when we started using humans," he said. The screen showed a clip of a young woman, of Asian descent, writhing in a chair as horns grew out of her head, and fur covered her eyes. She was screaming, though the video had no sound. Then, an Asian man shook in agony as his front shot out of his mouth, several inches too long, and his ears climbed his head, coming to rest on the top before he pulled free of his restraining chair and pounced at the camera. Several more horrible mutations were shown, each one almost made me puke, but I couldn't turn away. It was a grotesque miracle. Angel recovered before I did.

"Stockman, how the hell did you get away with this?" She asked, "the government would have been on your ass faster than you could finish _saying_ 'human test subjects'." Stockman nodded, holding up one finger as a coy grin danced on his face.

"Ah, you're right. And that is precisely why, for these experiments, we were working out of the country, on the other end of the world," he flicked his wrist, and a large island appeared before us. "You would be surprised at how many other countries have homeless people. We aren't the only ones with people who are so impoverished that they are willing to sell themselves to science just to get by. Japan was no exception."

"These experiments. They're inhuame, not to mention illegal and," Angel shook her head. "Baxter they're sick. What kind of morals do you have to have to do something like this?"

"How can you possibly talk to me about morality, Ms. Bridge?" Stockman spat at her. "I know the things you do. The things your father did. The things your boyfriend does. Terrible things. 'Inhumane and illegal' things. You're not on the moral high ground, no matter what your name is. You're a criminal, and I work with you. How can you expect me to be held to a higher moral standard than you?"

I could see Angel was getting worked up, and I placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. She looked at me, rage in her blue eyes, and I nodded to express that I understood. But we had more business with Mr. Stockman. I locked away his boyfriend comment for later, though. I had a sickly feeling about it.

"This mutation stuff is real gross and all, Sock Hole-"

" _Stock-man_."

"-but what does it have to do with me? I still look the exact same here, no tail, no extra leaves. Nothing." I finished, doing a little turnaround to prove it. He nodded enthuiastically.

"I was getting to that. As a matter of fact, you have my own ingenious to thank for your lack of physical transformation. At least at the cosmetic level," he pressed his table and pulled up a very complicated board of scientific diagrams that I couldn't make any sense of. "After our experiments in Japan we ran dry of the ooze. We couldn't make anymore, because a chemical we've named "Mutagen X" was needed to create the ooze, and we were out of it. We were lucky to be the first, and most likely only, people to discover Mutagen X. As far as I know, no other occurances of the chemical have occurred in the fifteen years since we created the ooze."

"Without the ability to make more of the same ooze, we had to move on to other projects. At first we tried to find substitute chemicals for Mutagen X, but the reactions in the subjects were far too volatile and unpredictable with anything but the genuine article. Many died. So from there we decided to branch out from the mutations and evolutionary side of the ooze," he was getting excited now, taking pride in his abominable discoveries. "We found that DNA was the cause and key for the mutations as they were, and went from there. We figured if the ooze could change DNA on such a radical scale, it could do so on a more minute one as well. Subtler transformations were slowly accomplished, with different binding agents than Mutagen X. More stable, for the most part, transfomations. Enhanced senses, hair color changes-"

"Super strength," I cut him off. He grinned lopsidedly, like a kid who got caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be.

"A more recent devlopment. We were recoiling from the dilemnas that the ooze had brought to our collective consciences, so when we began our new experiments we tried to stay tame. Cosmetic enhancements like clear skin, or helpful changes like repairing damaged vision or hearing. Eventually, however, I realized that the real profit would come from more radical breakthroughs. Fly to the sky, like Icarus, as I always say. We had the ability to shape life; we were, essentially, gods. And while the governments would scorn and attack us for our triumphs over nature, there were more reasonable people in the underbelly of our world. For instance, Angel, your very own Purple Dragons."

The windows were open, by then, and the lights were on. Stockman was looking out at the city, hands clasped behind his back. He shook his head slowly.

"A man will pay a ridiculous amount of money for something he believes will give him the edge over his fellow man. Militaries of every country know this. Your friend, Hun," he turned around, that psychotic smile still on his face. "He knows it just as well."

"You mean-" Angel started.

"It's not always might that a man is looking for when he wants superiority. Sometimes, it's intelligence. And intelligence, my friends, is my specialty. Unfortunately for you, it doesn't seem to be yours," he said dramatically, throwing his hands in front of his face.

It was then that flash grenade shattered the window behind Stockman, and rolled to a halt at my feet.


	8. Casey vs Hun, Round 2

I had no time to react. The grenade went off with a blinding flash and a deafening explosion. The whole world went white, my ears ringing. I stumbled around, senses entirely deprived. At some point I think I fell to the floor. After several moments the ringing in my ears subsided and I heard the footsteps and voices of a few people. My vision was still mostly impaired, but growing better with each blink. I could make out Angel's form, and another person next to her, kneeling. She wasn't moving. After a few blinks, I made out a purple tuxedo and dark hair on the second person, and when I could finally see completely I recognized the purple tattoo on the mans neck, and the long, black ponytail. It was Hun.

I struggled to my feet, head aching from the sudden attack on my senses, and grabbed onto a nearby table for support. I looked around the room. Baxter Stockman was standing next to Hun, who had retrieved two pill bottles from Angels coat pockets. A few other Purple Dragon goons milled around, some of which I recognized. The lady with the mohawk was among them. A revenge attempt? How did they know I was going to be here? My head swam, but I'm not as dense as people like to think I am. The answer hit me.

Stockman. When he was typing on that invisible keyboard, he was telling Hun what was happening. I knew he was tied to the Purple Dragons, and from what I could tell, Hun was their leader. It made sense that he would be in contact with him. The whole slideshow deal was just to distract us long enough for Hun and his goon squad to show up. I tried to move, but my legs were jelly, so I tuned into the conversation that Stockman and Hun were having.

"-ay be some complications. Emotional stability could be tampered with; they're essentially the strongest steroids on the planet. Make sure you only take two or so at a time, and always take the followup dose, or your insides will eat themselves," Stockman finished. Hun tossed the pill bottles to mohawk girl, who shoved them deep in the pockets of her leather jacket, before clapping Stockman on the shoulder and lifting up Angel in a fireman's carry. "I mean it, Hun. No more than two a week. We've no idea whether the human body can handle the rapid acceleration in protein production. You might die, or else something far worse could happen."

"Thanks, doc," Hun said, a cocky grin peeling apart his lips, "don't you worry. Two at a time, like you said." He whistled, and the goons started to file towards the shattered window, where I had only just noticed a helicopter hovering. His beady black eyes caught sight of me as he turned to go, and his grin turned into a sneer. He handed off Angel to the big guy I had seen the night these wackos were chasing me, and cracked his knuckles. I had recovered my balance by then, surprising myself at how quickly I was able to shrug off the flashbang. Maybe an additional benefit of the pills. I let go of the table, and stood up straight, eyes locked on Hun.

"What are you doing with Angel?" I asked, balling up my fists. Hun barked a short laugh.

"We're taking her," he said, "what are you gonna do about it?" Stockman looked from Hun to me and held up a hand, eyes a bit wide.

"Ah, Hun. I would advise you be careful, he-"

"Shut it, Stickbug," Hun interjected. Then, talking over the quiet correction of ' _Stockman'_ , he continued. "I can handle this goon. I took him on once, I can handle him again." Then, to me, he added, "hope you like the taste of knuckle sandwiches, pal." I mirrored the smile on his face, all teeth. I felt a bit naked fighting without my mask, but it couldn't be helped.

"I'm surprised you recognize me," I said, circling to the left. He followed the action in the opposite direction.

"Oh, please. Your voice is very distinct," he laughed his short laugh again, "not everybody can manage to sound cocky and pitiful at the same time. You could get a career in Hollywood." I brought my fists up, and he did the same. He was sans brass knuckles this time. I shook my head.

"You suckered me last time. I'm a lot tougher to take down when I'm ready for ya," I said.

"Hun, seriously, you don't understand. He-" Stockman tried to intervene once again, going over and trying to grab Hun's shoulder with a skinny hand. The bulkier man shrugged him off and pushed him several paces back, to be caught by one of the Purple Dragon thugs, who were all watching intently. Hun was locked onto me, with the balance of a trained martial artist. In a regular fist fight, he would clobber me. But I had a secret weapon up my sleeve. Eventually, I got tired of circling. I needed to get Angel and I out of here. So I took the first punch.

I ran straight for him, and swung a heavy haymaker wide at his head. I wanted to end this with one massive punch. Hun was faster than me, though, and ducked beneath me, jabbing me in the gut a few times before ducking under my second messy swing and backing away. Each punch I threw blew through the air and blew my wild black hair around a bit. Despite how much power they were packing, I couldn't seem to land one. Hun was too fast. I kept throwing wide punches, and he kept hitting me. The strikes would have taken me down had I been normal, but given my super strength at the time, they were painful. Just not fight-ending.

My time came when Hun decided to get in close.

I was getting tired of throwing the big punches, and he must have noticed that my punches were coming out slower, because he came in with a series of punches and kicks to my chest. He lingered for just a moment too long, and I closed my arms around him like a Venus fly trap.

Hun was a bit shorter than me, and more muscular, but those things didn't matter. My grip was iron. No technique could save him. I locked my hands around his forearms, and began to spin. Before long, Hun's legs were lifted off of the ground, and after a few more spins I gave a grunt, sending him flying across the penthouse. With a heavy crash, he collided with a pristinely white wall, destroying a sizeable chunk of wood and plaster. He was out cold.

Clapping my hands together to brush them off, I turned towards the other Purple Dragons. I pointed to the big guy.

"You're gonna leave her," I moved my finger to Stockman, "and him. And you're gonna take that piece of crap behind me and go. I don't ever want to see your ugly mugs again, not in my neighborhood, not in New York. Dig me?"

Each of them was standing, dumbfounded, for a few seconds before they nodded. Big guy laid Angel on the floor as gently as possible before walking sheepishly past me to lift Hun out of his hole in the wall. Then he, mohawk girl, and the other Purple Dragons made their way out onto the chopper, and flew away into the now setting sun. I rubbed at my chest. I was gonna have bruises there from all of Huns attacks, that was for sure. I walked over to Stockman and Angel, kneeling beside her and checking her for injuries. She seemed clear of any, and she was breathing fine, so I turned to the scientist.

"Alright, Slugma," I said.

" _It's Stockman!_ For goodness' sake you pea-brained…" He stopped himself, as if he just remembered watching me throw a full grown martial artist 30 feet into a wall. "What is it?"

"You're going to tell me everything there is to know about the pills I put inside of myself, and you're going to tell me now." I said. He nodded, a smile ghosting the right corner of his mouth. It twitched.

"Well, for starters," he said, his voice dripping with mirth, "you just let those Purple Dragons get away with the rest of them."


	9. The Countdown Begins

After cursing myself for forgetting the rest of the pills, I let Stockman continue. According to him, the effects of the drugs I was on were temporary. Two pills with the two follow-ups gave you the strength for about a week. I had taken the pills one day, and taken the follow-ups a significant amount of time later. I should have been dead, as far as Stockman's research said. I guess I'm lucky like that. One week. It had already been five days. That gave me two days to find the pills and get them away from the Purple Dragons. After those two days, I would be going up against potentially supered up bad guys with nothing but a hockey stick and some spray paint. I didn't like those odds. The rest of today, tomorrow, and the day after. That's all I had. I lifted Angel easily, and warned Stockman that if he got in contact with his Purple Dragon buddies I would be back, and not very happy with him.

Angel woke up on the walk towards her car. She stirred groggily before twisting in my arms, frantically trying to pull herself away from me.

"Get off! Let go, you creep!" She shouted. I looked around nervously. To any passerby this was going to look very, very bad.

"Angel," I said nervously, trying to get her to look at me, " _Angel_ it's just me. It's just Casey. You know, your handsome and totally badass roommate?" That got her. She stopped struggling and looked at me, those blue eyes full of annoyance.

"Oh, we get attacked by Purple Dragon goons and that's the first thing you say when I wake up?" She said, "very nice, Jones. You've got a gift."

"I'm right though," I said, letting her down, but keeping my arm under her shoulder while she regained her balance. "That's why you aren't in Dragon custody as we speak. I took down Hun and he and his buddies took off like a bunch of pansies. It was no sweat, honestly."

When we arrived at Angel car she pushed me off of her, unlocking the drivers side door and sitting in it. I grabbed her hand before she could put the keys in the ignition.

"Are you sure you should be driving right now? You just got hit with a flash grenade. You might wanna take it easy and let me drive." I said, worried. She rolled her eyes at me.

"This isn't my first rodeo, Casey. Get in," she said. I did so. She turned to me after I got in the passenger seat. "Besides, do you even know how to drive?" I snorted.

"Who the heck drives in New York, Ange? You're a weirdo for doing it, there's a subway for a reason," I responded. She shook her head, leaning over to rest her forehead on the steering wheel for a moment. I rubbed her back. Without lifting her head she swatted one hand at me lazily, and I pulled my own hand back. After a moment she let out a sigh, and pulled her head back up, starting the car.

"So what happened, exactly?" She asked. I filled her in on what Stockman had told be about the pills, and I went into extremely vivid detail regarding my fight with Hun. I embellished it a little, and I think she saw through the little white lies, but she listened carefully. When I was finished, she shook her head, pulling out of the massive TCRI parking lot. She struggled to keep the SUV straight at first, but got the hang of it after a few seconds. She must have seen my look of concern, because she glanced at me and made a face. "Don't look at me like that, Casey Jones. I'm not a sick puppy. I'm fine."

I was still worried about her. Not because of the flash grenade concussion. Well, that, but also for a lot of other reasons. Had she been dealing with things like this since she was a kid? Both of her parents were gone. One was dead, the other dodged out of her life. She was only a college student. Practically a kid. When I thought about it, so was I. Anybody that thinks you magically become an adult when you hit your twenties is dead wrong. You're still just a kid, but now there's pressure to grow up.

I knew all too well the struggles of being a kid with no parents. Angel was all I had. She had her college friends, sure, but I didn't have anything like that. But looking at her, then, gritting her teeth as we idled in end-of-day New York traffic, I started to understand where she was coming from. She knew what life on the underside of this city was like, she'd known it way longer than I had. That's why she worried for me. Not because she was unsure of what terrible things would happen to me, but because she knew _exactly_ what could happen to me, and that terrified her.

When we arrived at our apartment complex, the sun had almost completely set. Angel and I were both exhausted, so we trudged up the stairs with no words. Once we made it to our apartment, she went directly into the bedroom after taking off her shoes, and crashed. I turned on the tv for a little while, but nothing good was on, so I soon followed her. I was practically snoring before my head hit the pillow.

* * *

"Casey, wake up," came Angel's voice. I tightened my eyes closed, burying my face in my pillow. "We only have a day and a half left, you big lug, get up. We have work to do."

Unfortunately, she was right. I peeked from the warm darkness of my pillow at the clock on my phone. It was almost noon. I had wasted half of the day sleeping. Damnit. I chastised Angel sleepily for not waking me up earlier, to which she rolled her eyes so hard I thought that they would go back into her skull, and got up. After splashing some cold water on my face, I went to find Angel, who was sitting in the living room.

"Ya know, Ange, I've been meaning to ask you. How did you convince that judge of my temporary insanity case?" I asked her, taking a seat next to her on the couch. She was fiddling with a vast assortment of items sitting on the coffee table. A handgun, a Kevlar vest, a big ass knife, and a bunch of weird looking papers and other stuff I don't remember too well. I was busy looking at the first three things. "Is that stuff for me?" She scoffed before I finished my sentence.

"No, you dunce," she said, strapping the vest on and slipping the gun into a shoulder holster. She then covered the entire ensemble with a gray blazer. Rolling up her sleeves, she jerked a thumb behind her. "There's your stuff."

Sitting behind the couch was a large duffel bag. I got up, and a giddy feeling came over me as I unzipped it. The familiar white face of my hockey mask greeted me, accompanied by my trusty hockey stick, a pair of wooden baseball bats, and a five iron golf club. Nestled into the bottom of the bag were a few cans of black spray paint and an empty golf bag. I could have cried.

"I won't ever let them take you again," I said, givng my hockey stick an affectionate smooch.

"As far as your first question," Angel said, after giving me a minute to gather myself. "My dad used to pay off that judge. The moment he saw me he knew I basically had his nuts in my hands." She was smirking ever so slightly as she slid the big knife into a sheath. I nodded. That made sense, so I didn't pry any further. We didn't have time.

"Alright, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, where do we go to get those pills back?" I asked, slinging my golf bag, now full of my equipment, over my shoulder. Angel made a thinking face, shuffling through the messy stack of papers she was balancing haphazardly on the corner of the table.

"Hun knows I'm with you now, so he won't go to any of our main bases," she said, putting aside a few wrinkled sheets of paper. "I'm thinking he'll go to one of the more recent hideouts. Somewhere he feels in charge, and confident that I don't know the layout of."

"But you do know the layout, and that's how we'll get 'em, right?" I said, grinning.

"No," she said. I lost my smile. She shook her head, "I know where the newer bases are, but I haven't really been to them. Like I've been saying, I haven't been working very closely with the Dragons for a while now. Not since Hun started getting all power hungry."

"Oh," I said. That was a bit discouraging. We would be going in blind to wherever it was we were going. Plus one advantage for the bad guys. Angel hummed.

"I'd say most likely he would go to the East end warehouse. It's pretty far from here, and they only set up shop a few months ago. If not there, then maybe the Queens base. We can check both," she said, holding two pieces of paper in front of her. She folded each of them up and placed them in her inside pocket before running both of her small hands through her disheveled purple hair. She had heavy bags sitting under her eyes, and I could tell she was exhausted by all this. I couldn't blame her. Had I not been all supered up, I'd probably be reeling from the last few days as well. Epecially that flash grenade. That's not something normal people deal with. I shook my head.

At this point, I was very far from normal.

"Now, since I'd rather not be caught out in the open armed to the teeth, we're gonna have to wait until nightfall," Angel said, leaning back in the couch. I grimaced. That was most of the day wasted. "There's nothing we can do about it, Casey, so you may as well get comfortable." She was right, as much as I didn't like it. I shrugged off my golf bag and sat resignedly on the couch beside her, preparing to waste my time staring at a tv screen until it was time for action.


	10. Mask On

There was a time where I tried going vigilante without my mask. For a while I wanted all those criminals to see my face, to know my face, and to be afraid of it. The problem there is that faces ain't like masks. They change. They whimper, and bleed, and cry, and smile. Masks are hard. They stay the way they're made until they break completely, and that's much more vigilante than a face. Stoic until death. Fight until you can't. The bad guys see a person's face, they see a victim. They see a mask, they see a problem. Sometimes, they see a monster, like in those old Batman comics. Fear is your ally when you're the one with the mask. You've got something to hide behind, and they don't.

The mask gives you courage you don't have, because it's not you doing all the crazy stuff you're doing. It's not you that will have to deal with the conequences later. At least, that's what you tell yourself. That's what I tell _my_ self.

So that moment, when the sun was setting across New York City, when I pulled my mask over my head again, I was hit with a rush of confidence. With my powers and my mask, nothing could stop me. Not the Purple Dragons, not Hun, not anything. I grinned ear to ear under my mask, patting the head of my hockey stick in my hand a few times before twirling it back into my golf bag. Angel was leaning against the open window, her hair blowing gently in the cool breeze, her face stone. Just as the dark orange half-circle of the sun disappeared, she turned over to me, her eyes set.

"Ready?" She asked. I nodded, and she slipped out of the window. I followed, and the two of us began to ascend the fire escape. Around that time I started to think about how ridiculous all of this was, in all honesty. I started the vigilante thing imagining stuff like this, but somehow I always thought that it would never really happen. I was sure there were tons of other guys like me going around in costumes trying to catch bad guys, but somehow I was crazy enough to actually end up in this comic book stuff. I mean, a supered up guy with a mask and a countdown sneaking out into the night to track down a criminal and apprehend him? Total dream for any geek with a Batman comic in their hands.

Of course, in this comic, I might not come out alive like Batman always did.

We travelled along the rooftops for a while, as the night began to grow dark. You can't really see the stars in New York, cuz of the lights and the pollution or whatever. It must have been fourty five minutes later that Angel held up a hand for us to stop. I was panting, but much less than I should have been for running and jumping from roof to roof for fourty five minutes. Some of the gaps were too wide for Angel to jump by herself, and I had needed to lift us across with my super strength. The superhero fantasy continued. Angel dropped to a crouch and I followed her lead, the two of us creeping to the edge of the building and looking down.

In the alley below us, a pair of thugs dressed in leather with purple accents milled about, walking back and forth in front of a garage door with a dragon spraypainted on it. Could they be anymore obvious? I looked to Angel for instructions. She signalled with one hand for me to follow her, and began to climb the pip down into a perpendicular alleyway. I did the same, struggling a little to find nooks for my huge hands and we were in the alley, we snuck forward, and she peered around the corner. Then she turned and waved me closer. I lowered my ear next to her mouth.

"I'll take these guys out, and then you lift the door and we charge in guns blazing," she whispered, almost inaudibly. I gave her a thumbs up. A few seconds later, she was gone, and I was alone in the alley. Just as I turned to peak around the corner, I thought better of it. Angel was much better at all this sneaking around than I was, and I didn't want to blow her cover. A few moments later I heard a quiet _thump_ and then a choking sound, followed by another _thump._ My curiosity got the best of me, and I leered around the brick wall.

One of the men, a guy much bigger than me, was on the ground in a heap, face in the pavement. Angel was on top of the second dude, her legs wrapped dangerously around his kneck, pulling on his arm. It was some kind of judo move, and in a few seconds the man was out cold. Then, my friend stood and brushed herself off. I jogged over, and she gave me an 'after you' wave.

"Don't mind if I do," I muttered, squatting down to get my fingers under the door. Then, with a heave and an exhale, I pulled the garage door up from the ground, and above my head. There were finger marks in the metal from where I had grabbed it, and I shoved up once more to keep the door locked in place before letting go and pulling out my two baseball bats. Angel had already dashed ahead.

The warehouse was surprisingly empty, as far as warehouses go. Maybe I had read too many comic books, but I thought these places were usually full of stacked boxes and fork lifts, with bad guys milling around like it was a hotel lobby. When Angel and I charged into the place, we weren't met with any opposition. There were a maximum of fifteen boxes total in the place, and they were all fairly small. I looked around, wary of a trap, and Angel held her gun in both hands, eyes sweeping the place.

"I don't like the smell of this, Casey, keep your eyes open," she said quietly. I grunted in response, and began to jog around the interipr, flipping boxes and searching for anything or anyone hidden. I couldn't find anything. Angel, who had checked the other half, looked at me, concern oozing from her pores. "I know this place is new, but I figured there would at least be somebody posted up here. It's really just those two guys."

"Which means Hun isn't here either," I concluced, shoving my bats back into my golf bag with a sigh. "Where was that other place you wanted to check?"

"The Queens hideout, but…" She shook her head. "Yeah. Alright, we should get there as fast as possible. Time is running out."

She was right. As the day had winded down I could feel my strength fading. I was still much stronger than I used to be, but I had to force it. Like flexing at all times. It was exhausting. We took of, climbing back up the building we had come down from and taking off across the rooves.

The Queens base was a couple hours away on foot. By the time we arrived, we were both very out of breath. I bent over, hand on my knees, while Angel stood normally. She had the endurance of a rhinocerous or something, I didn't get how she could be so in shape, and I started to wonder which one of us really had the super powers. Once I had caught my breath, the two of us stealthily made our way to the edge of the rooftop, and squatted down to peer over the edge.

This time, the place was much less obvious. If Angel didn't know these guys secrets, I would never have found it. I realized, in that moment, just how much Angel was doing for me. She had saved me from the judge, brought me to Stockman, helped me find the Dragon's base. All without much more complaint than a few eye rolls. She was honestly the best friend I could ask for. And as I watched her punch a guy so hard in that face that he fell to the ground like a sack of produce, I had never felt more respect for a person. It also turned me on. More than a little bit.

There were more Purple Dragon thugs here. Just as Angel's third victim of the evening went down, several more of them came out from the shadows of the dark alleyway, a half dozen or so guys, sporting nasty looking approached from all sides of us, forcing Angel and I to back into each other. I pulled out my hockey stick and twirled it around. The familiar weight in my hands gave me confidence. Grinning under my mask, I pointed the end of my stick towards the nearest goon, a huge woman with a rusty chain.

"You're first, Amazon," I said.


	11. Music To My Ears

With a shout, I rushed the Dragon, ramming my shoulder into her gut like a battering ram. She let out an _oof_ as I knocked the wind out of her, but she only backed up a few paces. She was built like a freaking grizzly bear. She snagged the chain around me while I was still in close, and pulled my head down, slamming my face into her knee. I felt the impact through my mask, and for a second I saw stars. Then she spun me past her, and I stumbled towards a brick wall, catching myself last second. I turned back to her, shaking my head. My nose was bleeding, and a trickle of hot liquid oozed underneath my mask and onto my tank top, where it blended in with the red fabric.

She was on me before I had regained my balance. She pulled the chain into one hand and slashed it across my face, the heavy metal making my head flash with pain. She did this twice more, and on the fourth pass I caught the chain in mid-air, glaring daggers at her through the eye holes of my mask.

"You're gonna regret that, punk," I panted, knuckles going white on my hockey stick.

"You wouldn't hit a lady," she said mockingly, trying to yank free her chain. I was too strong. My super countdown wasn't up quite yet.

"Friggin' watch me," I spat. Then, without another word, I reeled back the hockey stick with both hands, dropping the chain to do so. I swung the stick at her head with all my might, slicing the air with a resounding _whoosh._ The weapon collided with her skull and she flew several feet to the side, a massive red welt forming on her temple where the weapon had collided. At the moment of collision I heard a _crack!_ Looking at the end of my stick with a groan, I realized the head had broken off. "Oh, great." I muttered, stowing the stick into my golf bag and pulling out my five iron, turning towards the rest of the attackers.

I was surprised, but only slightly, to find the rest of the Purple Dragon mooks on the ground, drooling puddles into the pavement. Angel was walking away from her handywork, towards a door I would have completely missed. I let out a low whistle, stepping over a clocked out Dragon to follow her. The door was made of wood, with the tiniest spraypainting I had ever seen in the center of it; you guessed it, it was a purple dragon. She tried to open it, and found it locked. After slamming it with her shoulder a couple of times, she stepped back, rubbing her arm.

"Have at it, Superboy," she said, rotating her arm in a small circle. I cracked my knuckles forward, grunting with a fake arrogance.

"I think I deserve the title of -man, thank you very much," I said. She rolled her eyes at me. After a dramatic diplay of pulling my fist back, I let loose a straight punch that sent the door flying off it's hinges. However, I winced in pain afterwards, my knuckles scraped and bleeding. I shook my hand Jackie Chan style. Angel didn't seem to notice, wasting no time in entering the building. We stepped into a thin entryway, only wide enough for one of us to walk through at a time. The walkway ended in a flight of stairs leading up. After the stairs we entered a wide open room, some kind of studio apartment. Scattered across the room were wooden crates, and one of them that I could see was full of sound equipment. On the far end of the room there was a television screen, casting a blue glow on the entire area. In front of the screen was a tall armchair.

I tensed up. I looked to Angel, and she nodded. Finally, we found him, and with little time to spare. I was weakening. Soon all of the wounds I had receved these past few days would catch up to me, and I'd basically be a walking sack of hamburger meat. But now wasn't the time to think about that. I had a most likely supered up Hun to deal with. I started towards the chair, Angel right beside me, when he started talking.

"Glad you could make it, man, I really am," he said. "Honestly, when Hun told me you were gonna come here, I didn't beleive him. I told him, I said 'Hun, you crazy. Ain't no way this guy's dumb enough to fall for that old ass trick'. But he was adamant, y'know what I'm sayin'?"

I frowned. This was definitely not Hun. I stopped dead in my tracks, Angel following suit. The big, velvet chair spun around slowly, and the lights in the room came up. Sitting in the chair was a man with a very deep tan, sporting a leather jacket and matching leather pants. Covering his eyes was a pair of old school golden sunglasses, like something out of an cartoon from 1987, and his hair was spiked up in a bright purple mohawk. He had an ugly sneer on his face.

"You're not Hun," I said through gritted teeth. The guy snorted.

"Wow, gold star, you're a real Sherlock ain't ya, just a freakin' genius," he said. He stood from his chair, placing his hands on his hips. As he did, he pulled back the sides of his jacket, revealing a pair of pistols holstered at his sides. "'You're not Hun', damn that's priceless."

"Well then who the hell are you?" Angel chimed in. The guy kept his nasty smile.

"The name's Zeck. Anton Zeck," he said, giving a fake little half bow. I shook my head.

"And here I was thinking you Purple Dragon goons couldn't get any goofier looking," I said, adjusting my grip on my golf club. Anton Zeck waggled a finger at me, shaking his head.

"Now, see, that's where you're wrong, my man, I ain't a Dragon," he said. He gestured with both hands in a sweeping motion up and down his whole body. "Search me, ain't no tattoos on this glorious temple of mine." Angel's lip curled up a little more with each word the man spoke. I could tell the only things keeping her from running over and Black Widow flipping this guy were those guns. Her eyes darted around, trying to find an opening. I decided to keep this Zeck guy talking to buy her time. Time. We were running out of it. I was hoping she figured something out soon.

"So if you're not a Dragon, why are you working for Hun?" I asked, trying to goad something out of the obvious ego he had. Zeck leered at me.

"For money, Jason Voorhees," he said. He shook his head like it was the most obvious thing he could have said, and I was an idiot for not thinking of it. "I'm a mercenary. I don't do anything that I don't want to do or I'm not getting paid for, you dig? I've been watching the news. You've been messing with the gangsters around here for a while now, huh? I bet you never thought you'd go big league. Never thought you'd have to look down the barrel of a gun." He snickered, pacing back and forth in front of us. He wasn't wrong. This was exactly what I had been thinking about earlier, but now wasn't the time for self doubt. I glanced over at Angel, who had her fists clenched at her sides. I couldn't tell if she had a plan or not, so I kept talking.

"So, what's with the getup?" I asked, trying to sound as annoying as possible. "You look like the 80's got sick and threw up all over you." He shook his head, snorting that malicious laugh he had.

"I happen to have been grown up in the 80's," he said, popping up the collar of his jacket. "So I feel right at home in this outfit. Oh, and don't think I haven't noticed what you're doing. Stalling time so you can figure out how to approach me? Not sure if that's smart or super, super dumb, man. You're on a clock as it is, and you're wasting time?" I cursed myself mentally. Everything he was saying was true, I had hours left. My legs were heavy, and I was starting to sweat. I felt like crap.

"You would have had a better chance if you had just came in swinging, honestly. Judging by what the Doc said about the exponential decay of those drugs you're on, you were probably double the strength you're at now when you first walked in here and started yapping at me," he tapped his wrist, as if there were a watch there. Angel spoke up again after that.

"I knew I recognized you," she said. "I just didn't know your real name. Most people just call you by your code name." I looked at her for a split second, before snapping back to look at the mercenary. I had a feeling the moment I took my eyes off of him for too long would be the moment Angel and I died. Blood was pooling up under my mask, mixing with the salty sweat and making an altogether unpleasant experience in there. Zeck's sneer widened, and he held out his hands as if accepting a standing ovation.

"That they do, little miss, that they do," he said, lowering his shades and whipping out one of his guns faster than I could blink. "Most folks call me Bebop."

I nearly lost my shit. I snorted back a laugh, but couldn't contain the giggles for long.

"Bebop? Are you friggin' serious?" I said between laughs. "Why in the heck would anyone call you that?" My shoulders shook, and I hiccuped slightly as I watched Bebop ( _snicker_ ) pull a small device out of his pocket.

"Let me show you," he said, pressing a button on the device.

There was an enormous _thoom!_ And then I couldn't hear anything. My head was vibrating so fast that the world looked like I was seeing it through an old school tv with bad reception, and it didn't stop. I had to squint to keep my eyes from popping out of my head. I dropped to one knee, the sheer force of sound attacking my ears throwing my balance off completely. I felt the blood in my head build up, like it was going to pop like a cork. I dropped my golf club, and gripped my head with both hands, trying to steady myself. What was happening?! I turned my head, slowly, to look at Angel. She was on the ground, crawling towards one of the wooden crates I had seen when we came in. I followed her iron gaze and found what he was going for.

The crate, and the others like it, had opened to reveal massive speakers, all aimed at us. We had walked right into Bebop's trap. Right into the kill zone. I turned, painstakingly, back to look at Bebop. He had returned to sitting in his chair, and was typing on a smart phone. He seemed unaffected by the sound. Was he outside of the radius, or did he have some kind of soundproof earplugs in? Whatever the case, he didn't seem to notice Angel, which was a good thing. I turned back to my friend. She had reached the crate, and I could see blood streaming out of her ears from being so close to the sonic attack. She pulled out her big ass knife, and with a cry of triumoh that I could not hear, stabbed into the speaker. There was a silent fly of sparks, and the pressure in my ears lifted just barely.

I realized I was gawking, and I couldn't make Angel do all the work. I struggled towards the nearest crate to me, and jammed my fist through it. I felt the uncomfortable shock of electrocution, but once I had disabled the speaker the pressure in my head lifted considerably. With the first two speakers destroyed, Angel and I were able to make quick work of the others. Once I destroyed the last one with a heavy blow from one of my baseball bats, I stood woozily, looking over to Angel. She had drawn her gun and had it centered at Bebop. She said something that I couldn't hear over the roaring in my ears, and Bebop responded. How could she still hear? Was I suffering from the exponential degeneration that Bebop had mentioned? Something that the mercenary said made Angels jaw drop. She scrambled over to me, nearly falling over from her lack of balance, and kneeled next to me.

I squinted at her, and she split into two Angels. She was shouting at me, shaking me. I couldn't hear any of it. I watched her pull a small syringe out of her blazer pocket and show it to me, still talking. The needle-tipped vial was full of some odd liquid that I couldn't tell you the color of. I was a tad distracted at the time. I didn't have the energy to question why she was jabbing it into my chest, but a few seconds after she did, my hearing returned in the middle of her sentence.

"-o back to the apartment, Casey!" she shouted. I looked at her incredulously.

"What? No, we have to take this guy out," I said blearily. She shook her head, grabbing my face.

"Casey, if you don't get there _right now_ Hun is going to kill everybody in the building. Casey you have to stop him, do you hear me? You have to! I can take care of this clown," she said. I put my hand over one of hers and she yanked both of them away, shaking her head more. "Go, Casey! Go!" She turned away from me, training her gun back on Bebop, who drew his in return. My feet moved by themselves in that moment. Maybe it was because of what I had seen that evening, or something I always knew, but I had the feeling that Angel could take care of herself. Before I knew it, I was out in the New York Night, running top speed to a place I knew all too well.

The subway station.


	12. Youtube Saves My Life

The specific station I had in mind is, on any given day, packed full of freak and weirdos. Along with your obligatory peddlers and druggies, there's people going to costume parties, people who think they're wizards, and just about any other kind of nut job you can imagine. Now, usually this would be a reason to avoid a place, at least if you're sane. Tonight, it was the perfect place for a half-dead vigilante in a hockey mask to blend in with the crowd. I slumped down on a bench next to a lady that smelled terrible.

"Hello, young man," she said, giving me a toothless smile that puffed up her cheeks. I nodded to her. "Would you like to eat my puppy?" She asked, producing a small dog from her purse and extending it to me. The little guy yipped at me, tongue lolling out.

"Uh, I'm good," I said. She shrugged.

"Oh, well," she said, pulling the dog up towards her mouth, "more for me." Hastily, I snatched the pup from her gaping mouth. Even though I was pretty sure all she could do was slobber on the animals head, I didn't want it to be subject to even that misery. I like dogs.

"Y'know, on second thought, I am feeling a bit peckish," I said, pretending to take a bite out of the dog. "Mm, so good!" She smiled at me some more.

"Oh, hungry boy! Well, alright, you go right on ahead. I've got more on the boat," she said, turning away from me and staring at the empty subway tracks. I looked around for a place to put the dog, and settled on a decent seeming couple of guys who were holding hands.

"Hey, uh, I know this looks weird. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have rabies, it's sort of a rescue. Happy anniversary," I said to the first one. He took the puppy and raised his eyebrows. His partner scratched his beard and then the dog's ears, a small smile forming on his lips. Behind me the subway train screeched to a halt, and I gave the pair a thumbs up. "Right, well. Have a good one, folks."

Whatever Angel had injected me with had been slowly kicking in since I had left the Queens base, and my heart was beating quickly. I wasn't as tired as I had been several minutes ago. Some kind of energy boost, I guess. I really needed to stop putting weird stuff in my body or it wa gonna bite me in the butt some day. The entire subway ride I was tapping my feet and patting my legs, almost literally jumping out of my seat. The minutes winded down. The night had reached its peak. I would be super no more in a few hours, and my neighbors would all be dead in much less time. The ride could not have felt any longer.

When we arrived at the subway stop closest to my place, I was already standing next to the door. I was the first one out, my newfound energy carrying me like a plastic bag on the wind. I dashed past the crowd of people waiting to climb on the car, and shoved my way up the stairs and onto the street. I was a block away from my apartment building, a block away from Hun. A block away from what was mostly likely going to be the last fight I ever had. I grit my teeth, dried blood cracking on my lips. I burst through the door, bounding up the several flights of stairs that led to the my floor, and slammed open the door to my apartment, Angel's energy shot giving me the stamina of a work horse.

When I entered my apartment, I felt my blood boil. He was there, this time it was no mistake. He sat in front of my tv, I could make out his back lit ponytail and the collar of his tux. There was nothing on the tv, just blank blue screen.

"Good timing, Casey Jones," he said. Something in his voice sounded strange, like there was something caught in his throat. I pulled out my bats.

"You and me, Hun," I said. "None of the people in this building need to get involved. Let's take it outside."

I heard him chuckle quietly to himself response. Then, my head spun. I dropped one bat, and grabbed the door frame until the nausea stopped. Hun shook his head.

"You're in no position to make demands, Mr. Jones," he said, standing up with a grunt of effort. There was an audible creak from somewhere as he stood, whether it was the floor or the couch I couldn't tell. However, there were a few things I _could_ tell. First of all, Hun was significantly taller than he had been that last time he and I had tango'd. He almost had to hunch over to fit in the room. Second, his hair was a bleached blond color, almost white. Third, and most frighteningly, were his arms. They were huge, and not I-go-to-the-gym-and-snort-protein-poweder huge. Inhumanly huge. Each bicep was at least as wide around as I was, probably bigger. He grinned his huge toothed grin at me as he took slow, heavy footsteps across my apartment, before bending over to look me in the face. His eyes were tinted purple, and reflected the dim hallway lights like a cat's.

"How many of those pills did you take?" I asked, not daring to even blink. My body was screaming in pain now, from my many injuries and from sheer exhaustion I would have liked nothing better but to just fall asleep, right there, and let whatever happened happen. It would be so much easier… No! Wake up, Casey Jones, you gotta stop this freak. You're the only one who can. Tired or not, super powers or not. I was the only one here who could handle Hun, who had, in response to my question, produced a pair of small orange containers and dropped them to the floor. They were empty.

"Y'know," he said in his rumbling, inhuman baritone. "I get the feeling that Stalk Mouse was trying to hold me back from reaching my full potential, you know what I mean? But I'll have a conversation with him in due time." He flexed a massive hand in front of my face. My breaths were heavy now, and ragged. I tried my best to stand tall and confident, to not show weakness, but with those predator eyes I got the feeling Hun wasn't fooled in the slightest. I was weak. I was prey.

"And you, Casey Jones," he said, pointing a sausage sized finger at me. "Oh-ho, do I have a bone to pick you _you_." He accented the last word by jabbing that finger into my sternum. The force of the blow sent me flying back into the hallway, and knocked all of the little wind I had out of me. I hit the ground on my butt hard, and skid an inch or two. I tried to use my bat to pull myself up to my feet, by Hun grabbed me by the front of my shirt and lifted me up to eye level with him. I wasn't fast enough. Wasn't strong enough.

"You beat the living crap out of me with one throw, last time we saw each other, Mr Jones. Remember? 'Course you remember, it was yesterday. You embarassed me. Now, I'm gonna get vengeance." He clenched his fist, and with a heave, threw me straight up, through four floors and a cement roof. Each floor I crashed through felt like I was being beaten with the moon. Shrapnel and splinters dug into me, and my vision went nearly to black for a second. I hit the roof top hard on the way down, flat on my back. A few seconds later, Hun came leaping out of the massive hole I had made. For a few seconds I laid there, unable to move. My body just didn't want to listen to my brain anymore. Any other person would have died. Boy, was I getting the last bit of mileage out of this Ooze stuff. Eventually I was able to rise to a seated position, and as I squinted my eyes back into focus I saw Hun towering over me in the night glow of the city.

"Go on, Jones, get up," he said, crossing his tree trunk arms across his tractor-trailer chest. "It's no fun throwing you around if you don't find back."

I struggled to my feet, clutching the remains of my hockey stick like an elderly man's cane. I fought down the vomit and breathed a few painful breath, pieces of wood and carpet falling off of my body. I probably had a broken rib or three. Hun watched me, shaking his head in contempt.

"You really are pathetic," he spat at me. "I can't believe I let a worm of a human being like you catch me off gaurd back at TCRI. What was it you said? 'I'm not so easy to beat when I know it's comin'.'" He chuckled darkly, not uncrossing his arms. I just glared at him. As much as I would have liked to beat his smug ass from there to California, I didn't think I had the strength in me. Comitting to the fight would probably get me killed. I needed a smarter strategy, there was no way I could take him down in an all out slug fest. I looked around me. The ground was several stories below, a fall from this height would kill me. I didn't know about Hun though; he had taken the entire dose of Ooze. There was no telling how tough he was now.

"Well? Are you going to attack, or should I go first?" Hun jeered. "Come on, while it's still dark outside, pipsqueak." I gulped under my mask, shards of which had broken off. One eye was completely uncovered. I was bleeding and aching from more places than I could count. I started to think more about the very real possibility of me dying here. Would that even be so bad? I wouldn't hurt anymore, wouldn't have to deal with annoying jerks like Hun and Stockman and Bebop.

 _Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to protect the innocent people in the building below either,_ I scolded myself sourly. _Not to mention Angel. She'd beat herself up over it forever. She'd blame herself._

For the first time in a very long time, I was right. Now wasn't the time to die. Not yet. After I took this big ugly mofo down, then maybe. But then I would have earned it. Right now, I had a job to do. So, with an angry shout, I mustered up all of my strength, and ran toward Hun with my hockey stick outstretched. He grinned evilly at me as I approached.

"That's it, come on! Take your best shot, Jones!" He shouted, holding his arms wide open. I didn't. Just before my stick would have collided, probably harmlessly, with Hun's chest, I jammed it into the ground, and vaulted over him, sailing through the air. He looked confused for a moment, before turning to face me. He turned his ugly mug around just as I hobbled for cover behind one of those enormous ventilation units. I heard him click his tongue. "I didn't realize this was a pussy party!"

There was a _whoosh_ of air, and suddenly the ventilation unit was gone, replaced with metal scraps and oil that covered the rooftop, and an angry looking Hun. He grabbed me by the face, lifting me like a rag doll and slamming me into the rooftop, a small crater forming behind my head. In that moment, something clicked in my brain. My body went limp, and somehow I knew. My time was up early. The strain I had been putting on myself had drained me, and no doubt the pick-me-up Angel had given me had burned my metabolism up too.

I was no longer super. I could feel it in my muscles, in my bones. One more attack like that from Hun, and I would be a Casey Jones shaped splatter on the roof. The oil from the ventilation unit started to pool beside me. I squinted at it. Hun was talking to me, but it was like I was underwater. Besides, whatever bull he had to say didn't matter at this point. It was probably some lame 'before I kill you' speech about vengeance or something anyway. I spared myself the effort of tuning in to his rant and focused on the fraction of a plan that had begun to form in my mind. I had one chance. Just one.

With the very last vestiges of anything resembling strength I had left in my broken body, I struggled to my feet, heaving raspy half breaths, my mask completely crumbled away. All of my weapons were gone, leaving me with an almost empty golf bag on my back, and nothing in my bleeding hands. I wiped at the blood gushing from my nose, but it was futile. More came from everywhere else and it soaked through my clothes. Pulling off my golf bag and dropping it behind me, I glared defiant daggers at Hun, who was looking at me, impressed. I reached one bone-tired arm forward, and as I had seen in so many kung-fu movies before, gestured for him to come and get me. He shook his head ruefully.

"If you say so, you stupid bastard." He said. Then, with a gutteral, monstrous roar, he charged full force at me, a fist the size of my torso pulled back for the punch that would end the fight.

Did you ever see a bull fight? Like, with a matador? When a thing as big as those bulls starts running, they're like a train. It takes a helluva long time for them to stop, unless they have the misfortune of slamming into something. Our buddy Hun had just that misfortune. As I tumbled out of the way of his murderous fist, he slammed it directly into the electrical closet I had been standing in front of. Blue electricity lanced off of his body, lighting up the dark night, and sparks shot off of his body, lighting up the oil on the pavement around us. He shouted in pain, retracting his smoking and charred arm from the closet, murder in his violet eyes.

" _I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"_ He roared, the red flames casting a deadly shadow over his face as they flickered. Black, acrid smoke billowed off of him, and his entire massive body shook with rage. I lay there, a helpless husk. I had nothing left in the tank. I was spent. I closed my eyes, hoping more than I had ever hoped for anything that my last trick would work out.

If you've never seen a can of spray paint explode in a fire, I advise you YouTube that shit right now, it's nuts. Now, imagine that, but five times bigger.

The explosion shook the rooftop, and flaming black paint flung in every direction, covering Hun in a coat of death. He shrieked at the top of his lungs, clawing uselessly at the black paint, which had become tarry and impossible to take off. I smelled his skin begin to burn, and heard the sizzle of cooking flesh as he hit the ground, attempting to roll of the flames but only coating himself in oil and feeding the fire. He lay there, struggling and screaming, until he eventually went still, and then silent. I didn't have the strength to smile.

The last thing I remembered as the edges of my vision closed in was a flash of purple.


	13. Epilogue

When I woke up, I really wished that I hadn't. I had never been in more pain in my young life. My eyes darted frantically around unfamiliar surroundings. I couldn't move much else. The room I was in was a stark white, with pastel colors for highlights. Something was pinching my forearm, and as I looked down to see what it was, I found I was covered in a white blanket. A tube full of clear fluid trailed out from underneath it. An I.V. I was in a hospital bed.

I breathed out a sigh of relief. This was just about the best place I could think to be. There was a shuffling beside me, and when I tried to move my head I winced in pain.

"Woah, hey, take it easy," came a familiar voice. A gentle hand pressed my chest down, which felt like I was being stabbed, and she walked into view. It was Angel. She had a big goofy smile on her face. I would have furrowed my brow if I could move my face without it hurting. Oh, man, what did my face look like? "I'm glad to see you awake, Casey."

"Yeah, me too," I said, instantly regretting talking. Fire burned in my throat. Angel could tell I wasn't in any shape for a conversation. I saw it in her eyes.

"Alright, buddy, don't talk. Just listen," she said. "You're gonna be alright. The doctor taking care of you is one of my people, so everything is strictly hush-hush. She says you'll be out of here in about six months. Which, _don't make that face at me_ , which is also when your probation will be up. So that's something forward to. Oh, and don't worry. You'll be making a full recovery. Well… Except for your legs. I'm sorry, Casey, but… Well. We had to get rid of them."

My jaw would have dropped if it could. My legs? Gone. That was it. Hockey was gone, crime busting was gone. My whole life, down the friggin' toil-

"Gotcha!" Angel said, giggling at me. I breathed out an angry sigh, giving her an annoyed look. She shook her head, holding her side as she laughed. "You- You shoulda seen the look on your freakin' face! You were like _wah?!_ Oh, man!" I tried to be upset, but honestly, I was just happy to see Ange smiling again. It was a pleasant sight. I've always liked her smile. Once she was done laughing, she came over and stood over me, a little smile dancing on her lips.

"I'm glad you're okay, Casey," she whispered, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. It hurt, oh hell did it hurt. But I was happy she did it. She turned, and went to leave. She stopped at the door, turning to grab the tv remore beside me and flicking to the Channel 9 news. "Oh, almost forgot. I did you a little favor. I know how you dig comic books and stuff. And I figured, every hero in those stories had a cool name. It doesn't have -man in it, but… Well, I think you'll like it," and with that she was gone. I looked at the screen curiously. The pretty red head was standing in front of a police line, as usual, behind which a team of officers was escorting dozens of punkers dressed in purple out of a warehouse and towards armored cars.

"The police are calling this the 'bust of the decade'. Chief Sterns has been trying to put away the Purple Dragon gang menace for years, and had little success. Now, with a little help from a friend, the boys in blue have finally taken down this threat." The camera panned over to a massive spraypainting above the warehouse entrance. It was a black skull. "The hero left only their symbol and their name. If you're watching out there. Thank you, Night Watcher."

* * *

 **6 months later…**

Ask anybody I know. I can play a mean game of hockey, lift weights with the best of them, and take down massive super mutants any day of the week, but put me in a button up shirt and ask me to talk to an employer? I sweat like a warthog and snort twice as much. So, when Angel and I pulled up to Louie's Pizza, I was very, very nervous.

"Ange, what do I friggin' say?" I said, tugging at my collar. She laughed at me, shaking her head.

"He'll ask a few questions, just answer them honestly," she said. That didn't help me at all. She got out of the car and I lingered for a little while longer. She came around and opened the door for me. "Let's go, Jones. No choice. If you don't start helping me pay for rent, I'm kicking you out of the apartment. I'm serious." I sighed, undoing my seat belt and climbing out of Angel's dusty old SUV. I already had sweat stains forming under my arms. Angel snatched my arm and dragged me into the building.

Louie's Pizza isn't a chain restauraunt, it's locally ran and operated. All people from the neighborhood. The atmosphere is quaint, and sometimes it got a bit of a sleezy crowd, but the food was good and the delivery guy was somewhat of legend. It was too early for pizza when we arrived, and Louie himself came to greet us.

Louie is an overweight Italian man, as you can imagine, with a shaggy head of hair and an even shaggier goatee, both salt and pepper black. He took Angel into a big hug and smooched both of her cheeks.

"Angie, baby, good to see you again. You comin' back to work?" He asked. She shook her head.

"Naw, Lou. That's what this big lug's for," she said, clapping me a little forcefully on the back. Louie turned his gaze on me and my throat clogged up. Angel elbowed me in the ribs.

"Uh, HiI'mCaseyJones," I said, the words tumbling out way too quickly. Louie looked me up and down, and a yellow-toothed smile slowly spread across his hairy face.

"Ok, Angie, for you because I love you, he's hired," he said. She gave him a surprised look.

"Just like that?" she asked. He nodded cheerily.

"Just like that," he said. He squeezed her shoulder. "Don't ever say ol' Louie never did nothing for you, ok? Huh? Thatta girl!" He shook her gently and chuckled. Then he turned back to me.

"When can you start?" He asked. Angel spoke for me.

"He could start now, if you want him to," she said. I looked at her nervously, and she tossed me a wink. I gulped. Louie smiled bigger.

"Ay, excellent!" he smacked his hand onto my shoulder, giving it a similar squeeze to the one he gave Angel. "I can tell you're not much for people. So how does delivery sound, huh? No waiting for you! See, I'm a nice guy, you'll like it here." I looked to Angel, who raised her eyebrows as if to say _Well? Say something?_

"Uh, sounds good. Thank you," I said. Louie chortled.

"Excellent, come on, I'll show you your partner. Best delivery boy in New York, the kids a prodigy! Really, I don't know where they found this guy," he said, dragging me behind the main counter and through a pair of retro double doors with little circular windows. We walked through a small, cramped kitchen and then out another door, Angel in tow. When we came out the other side, we were in the back parking lot. There, leaning against a dirty old red car with a Louie's triangle on top was a kid. A teenager, really, with longish dark hair. He looked Filipino, and when he saw Angel he gave a huge smile. The two waved at each other.

"Keno, this is your new delivery partner. His name is Casey," said Louie. Keno came forward, offering me a hand.

"Hiya, I'm Keno," he said. I looked at this kid, full of pep and optimism and groaned internally. Teenagers? Why did it have to be teenagers. I shook his hand. Louie pointed at the two of us.

"Ok, you two get aquainted. Me and Angie gotta do some talkin' ok? Ok, excellent," he said, taking Angel by the elbow and leading her back inside. I crossed my arms.

"Listen, kid," I said. He raised his eyebrows, listening eagerly. Little punk. "If you're gonna be riding with me, things might get a little shaky here and there. Can you handle that?"

"Oh, definitely," Keno said, smiling brightly. "That's, like, my thing. Rolling with the punches, y'know?" I rolled my eyes.

Little did I know how truthful that kid was being.

 **End of Book 1**

* * *

 **Author's Note:** _Hey, folks! Supaflywriterguy here._ _I hope that you enjoyed reading_ Casey Jones _! I had a blast writing it. If you liked it, leave a review and tell me what I did right! If you hated it, go ahead and tell me what I could do better. Oh, and since you were so good as to read to the end, here's a little sneak peek of what I have planned next! Enjoy._

 **Next time...**

Oroku Shinzo has grown up on an island with his sister, Oroku Karai, and his father and master, Oroku Saki. He and the other members of his clan have trained long in the ways of ninjutsu, preparing for Oroku Saki's plot for vengeance, and following that, conquest. When Shinzo and Karai are sent to America in search of something their father desperately seeks, the ninjas find that the people of New York City are much less accepting of a giant mutant turtle than the people of their home island, and must learn what it means to live in the outside world.

 **Coming up next:  
Phase 1: Origin  
** **Book 2: Raphael**


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